


The Therapist

by rachelautumn



Category: Merlin - Fandom
Genre: M/M, Other, intimacy issues, sex therapy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-23
Updated: 2016-06-07
Packaged: 2018-05-15 15:41:07
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 30
Words: 62,922
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5791186
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rachelautumn/pseuds/rachelautumn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Arthur Pendragon needs the kind of hands on help that most analysts won't provide.  Lucky for him you can find anything  in London.  </p><p>Enter Gwaine Greene, reformed flirt and sex therapist, a man eager to prove he can keep his work and life separate.  Will he help Arthur or is Arthur going to bring everything crashing down on both of them? </p><p> It could go either way, really.  </p><p>And then there's the problem of Merlin.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Gwaine Has Always Been Interested in Therapists...Therapy

**Author's Note:**

  * For [kitty_fic](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kitty_fic/gifts).



> This is for Kitty_fic, who asked me a long time ago what I could possibly see in Arthur/Gwaine. I answered, "I guess I see Gwaine as Arthur's sex therapist." And she said, "Why don't you write that?"
> 
> It wasn't going to go anywhere until Taverntales came up with the super marvelous idea of Rogues, Bandits, Thieves and naturally that meant I had to write a fic with Gwaine doing something a little awful in it. The naughtiest thing I could think of was hitting on someone at a sex anonymous meeting. So he did. But the truth isn't as bad as that because we all know Gwaine's good, right?
> 
> Several therapeutic ideals were injured in the writing of this fic. The events here in no way represent my opinion of what is viable or appropriate in a therapeutic relationship. If the idea of "sex therapy" might worry or hurt you, please don't read.
> 
> I will be posting chapters in sets of five.
> 
> I should add, now that I'm at the end of this that it ended up being more serious, more heartfelt and frankly longer than I would have guessed. Also, there is an anti-high heels subtext. Don't know how that got in there.

He should have been late. Gwaine eyed the circle of addicts as they fidgeted in their chairs, casting furtive looks at the back of the room where there was a biscuit tin and a clock. There were at least five confessions to go. 

Or not. 

"Well I call time." The pretty blonde therapist stood up from her chair and - before Gwaine could register his relief-promptly tripped on her handbag. She sprawled right at Gwaine's feet. If that wasn't a sign, he didn't know what was.

"Can I help you?" He was already holding out his hand, though at least two other people had been just as close to the fall.

"Honestly, I don't know if anyone can. Heels and I just don't get on." She made a face, squishing her regular features into something a little ugly and a lot adorable.

He made a show of looking at her little red heels. They were attached to nice legs, with surprisingly muscular calves and at least three ladders in her stockings.

"I'd say it was the bag did you in." Gwaine picked up the offending object, a horrible leather thing that was twice the size of the woman's head, and offered it up.

"Heels, handbag, it's all the same. Can't handle the girly things. I really don't know why I have to wear drag to look professional."

Gwaine found himself somewhat confused. He scanned the woman's throat and hands quickly to confirm that she was not in fact in drag, and cast an hypothesis while he was at it that the luscious tits were also real. 

"Skirts aren't your thing, I guess....Ms....?"

"Elena," She held out her hand while still tossing the bag over her shoulder. Her laugh was full and surprisingly low pitched, not the frantic giggle he'd expected. "And you're Gwaine. Thanks again." Then she turned around and marched to the door.

He hurried to catch her up.

"Hold on. How do you know I'm Gwaine?"

Elena quirked a brow. "Your reputation precedes you, obviously."

Gwaine rifled through his recent memories. Who could have ratted him out for scoping for dates at Sex Addicts Anonymous? Well there was Ian, an ex-lover who'd done the program himself. Gwaine had represented a relapse, but Gwaine hadn't met him at a meeting. He wouldn't do that!

"You don't think I'm the kind of person who'd go to a meeting to pick up an easy lay, do you?" Gwaine much preferred people who sought fun over people who sought oblivion, a rule that applied to liquor as well as sex. If he had a weakness for the kind of people who liked to help the other sort that was hardly a crime. Elena held two remarkable steady eyes on his.

"Nope, I heard you like to hit on the therapist, actually."

"Did Barabara tell you that?" Barabara had been in an entirely different part of town. How had she found some way of spoiling his sport up here? He scanned Elena's face for clues, but she didn't say anything.

"Was it George then?" Gwaine didn't want to talk about George. That had gotten out of hand. He never meant any harm, only wanted to let off a little steam, but George had wanted more.

"There was a George, too? Interesting. I only know about Linda and Anne."

Oh he'd forgotten about them. They were totally deniable. Nothing had happened with Linda and he'd met Anne at court during that unfortunate law suit.

"What a funny coincidence you knowing the both of them!" Elena was moving again, surprisingly quickly in those heels and he ran a little to keep up. 

"I do seem to meet a lot of therapists." He could certainly admit to that. "I think it's because I'm a people person."

To his suprise she stopped abruptly and leaned on the wall.

"A people person," she howled. "Oh that's rich!"

Glad to have amused her, Gwaine also leaned against the wall. From here he could see her blonde eyelashes, innocent of mascara, and the lipstick she'd bitten off her lips and never replaced. It was a lot like looking at a date the next morning, post shag.

"Can I take you out for breakf....I mean coffee?"

She made a face. "Honestly I get so much coffee doing this I'm like to pee myself."

"Let's make it dinner then."

The blue eyes lost their hilarity and gave him a looking over. It was quick but Gwaine got the feeling it missed nothing. Instinctively he sucked in his gut, though really, he had nothing to be ashamed of in that department. Nothing to be ashamed of in any department! There was no shame in wanting to take out a pretty girl.

"Look, Gwaine I can see you like therapists..."

"You are after all, fellow people people." Gwaine flashed her a grin, trying to keep the triumph subtle. He already knew she was going to say yes. There would probably be a little bit of a bollocking first, but he had a thick skin.

"Right. Has it occurred to you that you might be trying to get that kind of attention, I mean therapeutic attention for a reason?"

Gwaine was insulted.

"It hasn't occurred to me because it isn't true. Anyway, I don't like all therapists- only the good looking ones, the nice good looking ones." He turned his gaze on her so that she had the benefit of hearing his soulful Irish eyes adding, "Like you."

"Well that makes me feel special." Elena rolled her eyes and hit an elevator button. 

"It should! Come. Have a good time with someone who doesn't whinge at you for a change. Give me a try."

Gwaine could see her waver, ready to lay her caring burden down and come with him, hopefully more than once.

"All right, just for now, but you're fooling no one."

"There's a good lass." They were on the street now where he had snagged an excellent spot for his Camero because he was also a parking person. He kissed her on the cheek and opened the door. "You won't regret it."


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gwaine Accepts a Challenge

In the restaurant Elena unbent a bit, getting a little sloppy on pink martinis before their order came. He pushed the bread basket at her.

"Have a care there, Elena, remember girly things don't do well by you."

She tossed a roll at him.

"You are refreshingly shameless, I'll give you that." He caught the roll and the hand that held it and then let them go again, just a little hint of what he had to offer should she decide to continue the evening after dinner.

"I find people in your line of work appreciate that about me."

Their food came then and the conversation turned to other things. Elena turned out to be a dedicated Manchester United fan, poor girl. He explained the wrongness of this in great detail until she finally agreed that, while not superior players, Arsenal certainly had the finest arses in the league and were aptly named, "Arse 'n all". Finally, after an epic battle with molten chocolate cake which they both lost, for different reasons. (He couldn't finish it. She couldn't get it out of her hair.) it was time to get the check.

"Don't you think it's a bit disrespectful," she said, after they'd stopped laughing, while he was helping her with her coat, "to go to meetings where there are people who are suffering, in real pain and then flaunt your hook ups in their faces?"

He felt hampered somewhat from being behind her; he'd thought of this before and he didn't want to sound rehearsed.

"Honestly, no."

She turned around and he caught a flash of pink cheeked ire before she pursed her lips at him. Gwaine held up a hand.

"They don't know why I'm here. They're caught up in their own problems, aren't they?"  
Gwaine eyed the handbag warily. It was a near thing whether he would be hit with it or not. He went for it. He hadn't made up all those giggles. She'd liked him.. "I don't hear you complaining about our date, anyhow."

 

"You could think of them," she said, ignoring his comment about the date "even if they're not able to think of you." 

Gwaine shook his head.

"No, darlin' that's your problem. You're carrying all that lot around with you even when they're not there. I don't do that. That's why you like me."

Gwaine laid one hand on the side of her waist, easing into the spot where the buttoned down blouse had rucked up. He leaned into her ear.

"You did your good deed for the day. The rest of the night belongs to you." Gwaine tightened his hand along the waist, feeling how springy and delicious her little belly was. "I promise you won't have to worry about what's to become of me."

He said the last words into her soft neck. Elena wore no scent and it was all fresh healthy female that filled his nostrils, aroused healthy female if he didn't miss his mark.

A sharp jab through his toe box said he had missed something.

"Ow, I see you've a use for heels after all."

Elena snorted like a horse.

"Listen Gwaine, being a therapist, coaxing people to help themselves, you're right, it does exact a toll."

He nodded, waiting for the "but". He was not disappointed.

"And that means you have no right, even less of a right to take advantage of my....tiredness as if it was a mistake. If you don't have respect for the people I'm helping, at least have respect for my profession."

Gwaine didn't know what had gotten to him. Maybe it was the implication that he was taking advantage. It wasn't true! If he was after shagging every good looking therapist in a certain circle of London, that was only because he knew from experience that most of them were happy to let go in a safe place. No one got hurt; he was doing them a service, really. Elena had already sent him enough signals that this would not be the case here. He should go, immediately. He didn't.

After all, it wasn't her feelings that would be hurt when the rejection came. It wouldn't be her feelings that were hurt if she accepted him either. The shrinks he dated, always so careful about how they spoke to everyone else, always speaking so that the other person could listen, they were all happy to make an exception for the arsehole. Yep, Gwaine was a narcissist and a pusher; no one had to be careful around him. And he preferred it that way.

"Listen, Elena, I don't mean any disrespect."

Once again they were on the move, Elena lurching a little this time. He caught her arm, but kept walking.

"I just think you take on more of people's problems than is really useful to them, or you."

"And what would you know about it, Mister...?"

They were at the tube stop. Any chance of being laid, long gone. Why was he waiting, why was he smiling?

"Greene. Gwaine Greene, Masters in Psychology at your service." 

Her eyebrows were satisfyingly high. Gwaine smirked. This little bit of information had never been shared before. 

"Ah. So you could be helping people if you weren't dedicated to helping yourself. You know, like we're all just a box of chocolates."

"I prefer creams."

This time Elena couldn't hide the grin behind her cry of exasperation.

"I mean you're not actually a therapist or a counselor or a school aide." she said, rolling her eyes for maybe the 10th time that evening.

Gwaine shook his head. He didn't have to work, not that he was going to admit that just yet.

"So I don't care what all you have on your wall, or how many of us you've jumped after a long day when the defenses are low...'

"Have a care now!" Gwaine interrupted. She just gave him a pat on the arm, which was so chummy and fond he almost forgot to listen to whatever head of steam she was getting up.

"I'm saying you have no idea what I do or what part of it has to be taken home. I don't believe for one second you could do any better."

Gwaine came from a long line of gamblers, not all of them losers. He felt the tingle now, of a wager in the offing.

"What if I could, though?" 

"What?" He liked her surprised face, liked the open mouth.

"Yes, what if I did become a therapist?"

"Well, when you finish your training, feel free to get in touch!"

"No, no. Don't be silly. I'd just be repeating the mistakes that you all have trained into you, wouldn't I? I'm thinking I'd have my own methods."

He was grinning now, arms across his chest, as the idea caught up with him. "How about this. If I can set up a successful practice, according to my own philosphy, " He caught her narrowed glance and ate it up in the teeth of his smile, "And if there are testaments from say, oh 70 percent of my clientel."

"Let's just say 5 individuals" she said, "I doubt you'll attract enough to deal in percentages."

He inclined his head. "Fine. All the better. After these five have testified to how brilliant my method is, you will agree to be my partner in the practice, and maybe elsewhere if things work out."

"You think I'm going to run a practice with you!" Her astonishment was a little insulting, but not surprising. Gwaine was used to being underestimated.

"So," he said, after a short pause, "when shall we be meeting for our brunch date?" 

"You've got to be kidding me. You think we'll be going out again?"

"Well, if we're going to be partners you'll need to hear what my philosophy is, won't you? You might want to work out some of the kinks as it were."

Elena's shoulders slumped and she sighed a little.

"Oh Gwaine," The squeeze she gave his shoulder then reminded him a lot of the ones he received from his best friend and his best friend's Mother, a frustrated expression, with most of its force gone out of it, from being torn equally between the need to correct him and the hope that he would never change. "I don't think I'll be seeing you again, will I?"

He squeezed her right back and added a little kiss on the cheek for good measure.

"Of course you will, doll! I'll call you when I'm all set up, shall I?"

She was disappearing down the stairs and without her in front of him, the scheme faded in his mind. Gwaine had a lot of ideas that lasted as long as his beer glass. By the time he was looking at the top of her head he thought himself he might just have been trying to get into her pants. He practically jumped when she clopped double time back up the stairs.

"Boo!" She said unecessarily, through the rails

"Boo yourself." Gwaine hardly had time to unpack the smile he kept in reserve for yesses before she was clopping down stairs again.

"You know what? I dare you!" She shouted over her shoulder. 

Well. Perhaps he had meant it after all. Certainly he would not forget her face in that moment.

He watched her descending the stairway, still shaking her head and smiling a very small smile. He could get used to that smile he thought, scrolling down his cell phone to the number he had stolen off of her while she was in the loo. Under contacts he changed "Elena" to "Partner."  
Gwaine was an optimist. It was far too early to invest, far too early to gamble, but he didn't see any point in lying to himself. This girl, Elena, was the one.


	3. Merlin

It was late by the time Gwaine got home. He'd stopped by a bar or two, too excited to go home. There had been an offer in there somewhere, but he wasn't interested in any one else. Had that ever happened before? He felt abuzz with his plans, in a way he hadn't since he'd been playing knights in the back lots he used to seek out, a place to play freely, a long bike ride away from his parents' house.

"Gwaine, is that you?" 

Merlin was emerging from his bedroom, hand rubbing at his eyes, pulling his shirt up. Stupid git was too thin again, not that he didn't look good. Gwaine resisted the urge to rub his tummy.

"You go back to bed now." he said instead, "I'm not going to have you getting sick again, leaving your snotty rags all over the place."

"Hey it's not my fault I'm a light sleeper."

"Must be mine then. I do like seeing you in the middle of the night, it's true."

"Stop flirting with me. It won't work." Merlin gave a muffled attempt to look irritated, which couldn't have fooled a Kindergartener.

Gwaine didn't respond, walking into the kitchen and groping in the dark for some milk. As he replaced the container, he could hear Merlin behind him. He straightened slowly as wiry arms wrapped around him.

"Was a shit day, G." Merlin said into his neck. "I wish you'd been here."

Gwaine turned around and gave Merlin the benefit of his strongest hug. There was a litle oof and Merlin relaxed a bit, grinning.

Gwaine relaxed, too. There had been three or four months last year that Merlin never smiled, but now he was himself again, still drinking too much maybe, not that Gwaine had been a good influence there, or in other things.

"So, no luck on the job hunt, then?"

Merlin reached around Gwaine for the fridge door and pulled out a beer. He sat down and put his feet up on the other chair. Gwaine remembered to sit, finally, trying not to look like he was counting the beer. It was the third today, at least.

"No one seems to want a pianist who's pretty good, a literature student who's irrelevant or a barrista who's terrible."

Everyone wants you, though, Gwaine thought. He checked internally. Yep, Elena hadn't quite washed away the urge to touch his best friend. It wasn't an all the time thing, just a temptation that called out to him when he was tired. He pushed his milk glass away.

"Well it looks like I'm going to be starting up work . Maybe you can job for me."

"You're going to work?"

"Hey don't squint at me laddie, someone's got to keep you in neck scarves."

Merlin reached for his neck, caught himself and brought his hand back down.

"Seriously G. You're going to apply somewhere? But that's brilliant. I'm glad for you."

Merlin's eyes shone again like they hadn't since the brief time when they had been lovers as well as friends. Gwaine didn't focus on his mistakes. Tossed them behind him and forgot them as a rule. That one he remembered.

"So what did you do all day?" he changed the subject. 

"Threw away most of Will's stuff. You know the junk there's no point in keeping."

"Not the old playstation?" Gwaine didn't need to say how good it was that Merlin was doing that. "I liked that thing."

Merlin rolled his eyes. "I did it for your own good, you know. You were wasting your life on really lame games."

"Yeah, I'm not going to have time now anyway."

"Do tell?"

Merlin's mouth was quirking, not at all forced, like it used to be.. Gwaine could never help showing off for him, his reactions, until recently at least, had always been so fun to elicit, big round oohhs and squinty-eyed winces. He unfurled his plan with relish.

"Wow." Merlin said when he was done.

"Wow, what?"

"Wow, you really like this Elena."

"You know you don't have to sound so surprised."

Merlin shrugged. Gwaine's record spoke for itself, obviously.

"But what about the other part? What do you think of it? Do you think I could make a go at being a sex therapist?"

"I don't know G. That's a pretty feckin' revolutionary idea" Merlin tugged his hair. "Just be careful, G, alright? If you get sued for every penny I won't have a place to live." 

Merlin trotted off to bed humming to himself. He didn't seem too worried about Gwaine's radical change of plans. Probably he thought Gwaine didn't really mean it.

Gwaine himself hadn't been completely sure till now. 

He had wondered if the urge to impress Elena would fade, if the kickstart to his system she had started would lose force once he couldn't remember her face anymore.

Instead Elena remained very present, though Gwaine knew it would be a long time before she allowed him to see her again the way he had in the restaurant. For the first time, he felt ashamed that he hadn't made more of the time he'd had so far in life to make his ideas come to something. He didn't want to see her again until he could look in her eyes and see respect for him there. True, he could polish up his CV, try for work at a school or something, but Gwaine wanted his own respect as well. He had an idea and it was a good one and if he judged her right, Elena would not be too hide bound to see it.

That night he stayed up composing a blurb describing his services. The next morning before Merlin awoke he was already talking to the bank about the deposit he would need to rent an office in the medical center near his building.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gwaine and Elena Define Their Terms

Someone was leaning on the bell. Gwaine cocked his head. It wouldn't be a client. Office hours were almost over and even those with the best outcomes were never quite that aggressive when they came in to talk about why they couldn't get it up or what have you. That meant it was probably someone else. He answered the door prepared for neighbors, policemen, a paternity suit, anything. It was something better than any of those.

"Elena!" She was just as lovely as he remembered. There was the long blonde hair, escaping from a poorly designed bun in little wisps. He suspected the ends were probably crusty with something and longed to suck them clean.

That would probably have to wait, judging from her current expression.

"This, this is the practice you want me to join? You're a Prostitute!" she shouted. 

"Calm down, Elena. I have a business to maintain here, you know."

"Yes, a SEX business." She threw down the little advertisement he'd had made for a very good magazine on the coffee table as if it were a piece of filth and not a very pretty piece of design and careful wording. "I hardly think a little shouting is going to disturb your clientele."

He raised his eyebrows, suppressing the grin as he watched her take in the nervous young woman in the waiting room, the stiff shouldered gentleman still in the camel haired coat far too warm for the office, his highly respectable dwarf hydrangeas. 

"Oh, well I guess I may still be disturbing them even if they are coming to see a prostitute." Her voice was much lower now. "Um You are offering these people sex, yes?"

"You should have taken me up on my offer to discuss it over brunch." Gwaine had always been magnanimous about other people calling him names. Either it was true or it was the wrong one, either way an insult had never stopped him from doing what he thought best.

"I will give you five minutes to explain this to me in your office." She glared and flounced right past him into the office, as if she belonged there. He didn't have any problem with that,or with the view of her delightful legs and generous backside either.

"Look, I'm a sex therapist." He placed his hands clasped together on the desk like the doctors you saw in adverts. His bare toes worked at the carpet below. Possibly if he'd known Elena would be like this he might have put on shoes.

"Yes I saw. You've gone from preying on nice people trapped at meetings to luring the desperate straight to your bedroom." She nodded her chin at the bed visible behind them. "What happened? You got too lazy to wait for a meeting to end?"

Gwaine had worked harder than he had anticipated, harder than he ever had in his life for that matter to build what he had there. To his surprise he was hurt and angry.

"You're making assumptions about what a sex therapist is. Maybe you need to think outside of what you learned in school."

 

Gwaine watched her face. She had bow lips and round blue eyes, a dolly face. The expression was serious, though. She was actually thinking about what he had said, not just assuming she knew. After so many months of staring into clients' faces, trying to read what they needed for him he regretted now calling her "doll"; it might be something that she hated, having her thoughts dismissed because of the kind of face she had. It was not the kind of thing he used to regret. Gwaine grimaced. Yeah, maybe she'd had a point about taking some of this stuff home,

Ignoring him, she walked over to the bed and smoothed a hand over the coverlet there, looked over the desk where he had a collection of framed letters, read a few, pursing her lips, cocking her head.

She had one in her hand now he was especially proud of that two clients had written together. G  
"So what is this, a couple you got together?"

"Not exactly. They're friends now. Met in the waiting room."

When he didn't go on. She nodded,

"So you do have patient confidentiality?"

"No. Yes. It depends what they want. The people who write those don't mind me sharing their experiences. That's why they send them"

He moved over to the desk. "That's Carl, an old queen and the other one calls herself Trixie. Had a reputation as a slapper till she came to me. If you want to have that brunch I can tell you more about them." 

Gwaine waited for her verdict. He was struck with how much more he liked her, after a 3 month absence. As so often happened, his instinct had gone way ahead of him, that time at the SA meeting when he'd reached his hand down to pick up the cute ditzy therapist and kept flirting till he'd found in her someone who'd been the opposite of a casual lay. Nerves he didn't usually feel squirmed in his gut. 

'Yeah, OK. What you're doing is dangerous, and foolish and ultimately bizarre." She looked around the office like someone who has found themselves suddenly in a snow globe. "But I'm willing to bet it works sometimes, even brilliantly."

"So you're willing to be my partner?"

She raised her eyebrows, but he refused to define further. He meant them both, both things.

"Absolutely not. But." She raised up an admonishing finger that looked absolutely ridiculous on her and was somehow curiously arousing. "I am willing to do some research into this suspect field, publish a paper with you on one condition."

"What about brunch?"

"Just hold on."

"But you already set your conditions."

"Yes, but that was before I knew you were sleeping with your patients, on purpose." 

Elena sat abruptly in the chair that Gwaine usually put his patients in the first time they came into the office, before he tried the table. She looked good in it of course, but also oddly outsized. It occurred to him that she wasn't shrunk in on herself the way all of his clients were when they sat there. Elena held a tingle of energy all around her, something like a hovercraft, that cushions itself with air. How odd that she was so clumsy given that. He forced himself to stop thinking about her so that he could actually hear what she was saying.

"I hope you realize how much I am trusting you here."

"What? Oh of course, absolutely. And I'm honored."

"Are you even listening to me, Gwaine?"

Gwaine knew it was not the time to tell her that he was too busy admiring her to listen to her actual words. Imagining it from her point of view, he hazarded a guess.

"You're telling me that it's a big risk for you condoning this sort of thing," he waved around a hand, "going so far as to admit it works, for instance."

"Well, we'll see about that." He liked the the little smile he'd won. He was sure she didn't know she had it. "My point is I'm willing to do some well trimmed research on some limited aspect of what you do here, that might lead eventually to recognition of some kind. But you need to prove your professionalism to me. If I find out that this is just a stunt, whatever you may think it is right now, then I'm not only rescinding the offer, I'm blowing the whistle on you. I'm sure you're breaking some law or the other."

"Crikey, Elena, you don't mess about."

Gwaine was surprised to find himself tempted, briefly, to cut her loose altogether. He liked his work. He was good at it, had always enjoyed getting to know what made people tick. At one time, it was true, he had indulged in using his intuition to get things from people. Now he had found a way to help them instead and he found he liked it. 

But Gwaine always knew what he wanted and he still wanted the person standing in front of him. "What's the new condition then?"

"If you can help two people who already know each other, a couple, friends, whatever and they both recommend you, and you don't enter into a relationship with a client in the meantime,I'll take you on."

He thought about the conversation a husband and wife might have, after they both saw him and frowned.

"That could get a little awkward, now, you know."

"Exactly."

Gwaine thought about it.  
"I don't suppose a threesome of sorts would do?"

"No."

"Fine then," he held out a hand. "Fair lady, prepare to enjoy a lovely brunch with me before September. You're going to lose."


	5. Enter Arthur

"I finally did something about it!" Morgana came into the little boîte where Arthur always met her for luch with twice her usually energy and as a consequence with half her usual grace. Her purse bonked Arthur on the ear as she bent to kiss him. "Now don't get up on my account."

"No," Arthur muttered, "of course not." She ignored his injury. Morgana had never paid much mind to little booboos, as he recalled. "What have you finally done something about?"

"I shouldn't need to tell you." Morgana scooped up his hand and squeezed. Arthur fought the urge to recoil. "You grew up in the same house as me. Everyone was tense, no one touched us. You know what it did."

Arthur nodded, at a loss for words. He did know, though he hadn't realized till now that it was something mentionable. Their childhood home had been remarkably...unfuzzy. It had left Arthur at least with a sense of foreboding that only got worse because nothing terrible ever came to pass. It had also left him with a hatred both of echoing, chilly rooms and their overstuffed and overheated opposites. There was no where he felt comfortable really. But that wasn't something you could do something about, was it?

"I still have no idea what exactly you're on about, sorry,"he said. He looked her over. She was glowing in a very un-Morgana way. He'd never realized how clenched up she was all the time until he saw her now, unsprung. Her good will-which was normally hidden like a national secret- was right on display in smiles for the hovering waiter and little sighs over the flower arrangements. 

Now she turned and spread her smile over him. She leaned forward. Thank God, it seemed there was going to be privacy after all for this conversation.

"I've seen a sex therapist," she whispered. She squeezed his hand longer and harder. "It was marvelous. I've even stopped shopping Friday's!"

Morgana's closet burgeoned out in a way her waistline never did, as a consequence of her credit card habit. Very few people had been invited far enough into her inner sanctum to know of this weakness.

"I don't shop when I'm stressed." Arthur had leaned way back from the word sex on. She leaned forward even more to compensate.

"I know, Arthur. That's why you're twice as bad as me."

She laughed a full belly laugh at her joke. Arthur hadn't known that Morgana had a belly laugh. It was rather disturbing, but also a little nice. He felt one of those unnamable forebodings melt a way and drip out of his eye sockets. He tried to pretend he was allergic to the flowers, but Morgana wasn't fooled. She handed him a tissue and changed the subject.

They didn't mention it again during lunch, which had been one of the tastiest he'd ever had, even though he'd ordered the same thing as usual. Morgana did press a little card into his hand before she left, and he took it.

 

Gwaine Greene  
Registered Sex Therapist  
The Gift of Touch


	6. Just One Call

"Hello?" The voice on the other end did not sound like a secretary. It sounded like some guy who'd just been knocked up.

"I was given to understand that this was the number of a ...touch therapist." Up until the very last second Arthur had thought he was going to say "Sex therapist."

"That's right, I prefer Sex therapist, though; It's more accurate."

"Oh, of course." 

"So what's your issue?"

There was a long pause during which time Arthur endured a horrible interior video of all of his hook ups, relationships and lack thereof.

"Any ED?" the voice interrupted

"What's that?"

"Erectile dysfunction."

'Oh no, God, I'm only 27. Um, I'd prefer to discuss this at at appointment."

"Sure. I get that a lot. So when shall we meet? I have room Tuesday, Wednesday all day and Friday before 5 if you're available."

Arthur felt this whole thing was getting out of his control. If there was one thing he was good at, it was putting things back where they belonged. He hadn't quailed at finding his sister's bra under the couch cushions, no matter how little he wanted to imagine the process by which it got there (It went in the laundry basket.) . He hadn't pretended not to see his senior partner in the company's private bank account (He went to gaol.) and he didn't see why this guy should be any different. (Arthur didn't care where he went, as long as it wasn't down Arthur's trousers.)

"There seems to have been a misunderstanding. I was hoping to meet with a female therapist."

"Sorry to disappoint you, mate, but I work alone."

Arthur couldn't immediately reply. It had been a very near thing, making this phone call. He had made a pro's and con's list that was even on both sides. Honestly, he'd mostly called so that Morgana couldn't call him a coward about it.

"I'm a little confused. My sister gave me this card. I assume you gave her reason to believe I could use your services."

The man chuckled. "If someone who knows you well made the recommendation, I really think you should come in."

"Are you saying I'm gay?" Arthur felt his face darken with some mix of shame and anger. It was not unusual to let those feelings come out when he was alone, but he rarely spoke when he felt this way, certainly he didn't say words out loud that had to do with sex, with his sexuality, like gay or not gay.

The voice on the other end sounded just as jovial as ever.

"How could I possibly know better than you do about that? Come in and we'll have a consultation."

Arthur found himself agreeing just so he could be done.


	7. And Just What Do You Do?

The room was not anyone's flat. Arthur relaxed several degrees when he recognized the impersonal lobby of a building that specialized in all kinds of therapy. It was one stop. He could do his knee, his psyche and his dick all in the time it took to have a 3 martini lunch, not that anyone got those now-a-days. Well probably sex therapists did.

Gwwaine's practice was on the 3d floor. It had a nice little waiting room with magazines and pink bonzai azaleas, but that's where the similarity to a regular therapist's ended. When Gwaine opened the door to greet Arthur, he definitely glimpsed a bed behind him and there were mirrors and curtains and something hanging from the wall.

Gwaine followed his gaze and grinned, holding out his hand.

"Hey Arthur, nice to meet you. No worries. Were not going in there just yet. Come this way."

Gwaine looked exactly the way Arthur had pictured him: long hair, louche grin, slightly revealing v-neck. check, check, check.

Arthur followed him into another room, trying not to look at the muscular lines of his back. (One last whispered check). This one contained a normal message table an oddly low- placed monitor as well as what looked to be a shower. Gwaine gestured to the massage table. There was a pile of white cloth on it.

"I'm going to let you change into some loose linens. Don't worry. There will be absolutely no direct body contact." He stepped to the door. "Let me know when you're on the table."

It was a lot like the doctor's office, Arthur reflected, except that the things he put on while he waited were more comfortable than the business clothes he'd taken off, not less. Also, a crinkly piece of paper with a big gap for your arse to hang out of was a lie, not the cover up it pretended to be at all. These clothes were more of a promise, of ease, of control over how he was touched, of some point over the horizon when maybe he might feel a lot happier about...things. Arthur felt his shoulders drop several inches. He hopped onto the table, realized he was still wearing his shoes, kicked them off and winced as they made a rude clunk in the quiet of the space. He took his socks off, tucked them into the shoes and then sprinted back to the table. He cleared his throat.

"Uh, ready,"

Gwaine came in, smiling but silent. He too was in his bare feet, which was just outrageous, really. It's not like Gwaine was getting on the table...was he? Arthur supposed anything was possible for someone who did sex for a living.

"I'm just going to ease you into position." Gwaine said. His grin widened. The cheeky bastard made everything sound like innuendo. His touch was firm and business like, however, as he pushed Arthur toward the edge of the table. He turned on a monitor located somewhere at knee level and angled it so that Arthur had a good view.

"Ready? I'm going to play a series of clips and images now. I should warn you that the images all involve various degrees of sexual intimacy. Some are romantic, hand holding, gazing and so on. Others are quite graphic. None are crude in my opinion, but obviously these things are personal."

Arthur nodded as well as a person could whose chin was trapped in a head cradle. A lot of the relief he'd felt on first entering was being replaced with nerves now, like water pushing out the air in a sinking vessel. Now his chest felt as trapped as his face and he couldn't breathe.

Gwaine seemed to be expecting the reaction.

"It's OK. I am not here to judge you and there is no need for us to interact at all. In fact, I'm going to turn out the lights. I will be touching you, but you don't have to think of it as me. Just a massage that begins with your neck and ends at your hips.

"Is this some kind of desensitization therapy?" Arthur had heard of that, people who were afraid of snakes being thrown in a pit of them and so on.

There was a long pause.

"Oh Arthur," Gwaine said. He paused again. "No talking now. You don't have to think of this as therapy. You don't have to decode anything."

"OK," Arthur said. He wasn't sure if it was because of the whisper of shocked sympathy he was sure escaped Gwaine without him meaning it to, but he felt safer now. When the lights went out, he was almost immediately sleepy and as Gwaine turned on the video, he found it was easy enough to imagine he was in the comfort of his own bed.

The clips were not stock images as Arthur had first assumed, but pictures of the same couples, doing different things. There was a mixed race couple, two blonde women, two men who seemed almost like twins, and half a dozen others who appeared more rarely.

As Gwaine pressed and kneaded his shoulders, he watched the couples in front of him laugh and kiss and hold hands. Sometimes there was a sense that the sexual intimacy was building. The dark skinned woman might be more and more naked and then in the next few pictures the camera would come closer and closer as her partner stroked her, face her breast, and in an endless montage sequence licked between her legs while the camera panned back and forth between her face and his mouth. Other times there would be random interspersals, with the most shockingly obscene acts interrupted by a picture of the same couple merely laughing.

For Arthur the strangest such contrast was between the two men. There was a scene he felt his cheeks flame for, where the one guy was feeding his cock into the other man's arse. It kept falling out and then the man would stop and readjust or even take the opportunity to ring his tongue around the other guy's puffy red hole. There was a stud in his tongue that Arthur saw in such detail he could practically feel in in his own entrance. Just as they were starting to fuck in a loud rhythm, there was a picture of them at the dinner table with two children, holding hands.

Gwaine turned the light back on.

"I'm going to go get you something to drink," he whispered right in Arthur's ear. If he thought that would be less invasive than loud speech he was wrong. "The massage will have released some toxins. Do you want water or tea?"

"Tea please." Arthur's voice came out hoarse. 

"Right. Well you get dressed; I'll be back."

The massage may have released some toxins, but surely that wasn't enough to explain how oddly wrung out Arthur felt. He stretched, felt his cheeks with his palms. He had defintely blushed a lot, at least at first, before he got used to Gwain's silence. He reminded himself to hurry so that he would not be half naked when Gwaine got back. 

 

It was very much like a doctor's consultation, the way Arthur imagined such things would go some place really informal like Hawaii. Gwaine sat at a desk chair,which was normal medical carer behavior, but he invited Arthur right next to him, which was odd, and when he crossed one foot over his knee, Arthur saw it was still bare.

"So! Gwaine smiled what was probably his most professional grin. There was still all kinds of inappropriate excitement leaking over the sides of it. Arthur took a sip of his tea even though it was too hot. "You wanted to talk about whether you could work with a male sex therapist."

"Actually, I said I didn't want to work with a male therapist," Arthur hastened to say.

"Hmmm. Well you're not gay," Gwaine offered. "I could give you the name of a woman whose work I can vouch for if you like, though she isn't an actual sex therapist."

"Terrific." Arthur could see the end of the session looming up. He could tell already he was going to be depressed afterwards and he wanted to be already at the gym when it hit.

Gwaine placed a restraining hand on his knee.

"However I think you could get a lot deeper a lot faster working with your suppressed attraction to men."

"What? Arthur was certain he had side-stepped this discussion. "I thought you said only I could tell you that kind of thing about myself."

"I know." Gwaine's smile was just infuriating and should have disqualified him from any of the helping professions, even this one. "You did."

"I don't understand." Arthur didn't really want to understand.

Gwaine ran his hands through his hair as if what he was about to say made him a little uncomfortable.

"The table I use has sensors that measure your responses to the images: heart rate,temperature at the groin, stuff like that. But I could tell just from having your body under my hands; you liked everything you saw: men, women, the lot.

Arthur leapt to his feet. "Well thank you for your time," he said, clipping his words, "but I can see this isn't going to make sense for me."

Gwaine stepped very close. He was just a little shorter than Arthur, but he didn't shrink down or puff himself up looking up at him. Arthur could see the light shine through the clear brown of his Irises.

"You don't want to be bisexual?" he asked. "Why not?"

Arthur turned his face away. His eyes were filling with tears, none of which he would give clearance to fall. "I don't want to talk about this," he said, picking up his brief case and backing up. A part of him burned that he was backing up from a man smaller than himself, but most of him just wanted to get away.

"So let's not talk. I'm not big on talking myself."

Arthur squinted at him. Gwaine's posture had actually become less imposing. His hands were in his jeans pockets. 'Let's start touching instead," he said, with an insolent shrug. "That is assuming I don't give you the heebie-jeebies, or something."

"Heebie..what?" Arthur felt dizzy. This all just needed to go away.

Gwaine held up two fingers. 

"Let's keep it simple, shall we? Feburary 2nd at 2 O'clock."

He padded away into the interior of the office, where the bed was and closed the door.


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Arthur tries to have sex.

Arthur was never happier to be at work. Everything made sense here. Everyone listened to him here. Nobody talked to him about sex. They could be fired for that. There were rules at Pendragon Inc., including the unspoken ones.

Many of which were currently being broken.

Arthur walked into the conference room. 15 Spanish people in various stages of curry consumption looked up at him. As he stared, a pretty girl with black banana curls dripped something orange from a spoon onto her pristine white blouse. He backed out again

"Morgana! Employees hurried away like cockroaches on either side of him as he strode to her office. The door was open, but her voice came from behind.

"What is it, Arthur?"

She was leaning on some poor sod's work space, the way she'd been doing ever since she'd been to the sex therapist, the same sex therapist he was seeing he remembered. A picture of her and Gwaine copulating on the desk flashed through his mind. He repressed it quickly with the strength of long practice.

"You arranged the catering for the Spanish media group, yes?"

"Yes, Arthur." She walked over, apparently unaware that the guy whose desk she'd sat on was watching her retreating form, his paper held up forgotten, "I always do that. You think it's my job because I'm a woman, remember?"

Arthur shook his head. Now was not the time to mention the time they'd bet a game of billiards over this chore. She would just call a rematch and then he'd be stuck doing it.

"Why are they eating curry in the conference room?"

Morgana stalked over to him with her new slower walk. She adjusted his tie.

"Really, Arthur, aqua? Now no one will believe you're straight."

"Morgana!"

"Arthur! I just can't eat another sandwich. It just won't go down anymore. Besides, nothing says the real Britain like Indian food."

Her voice was surprisingly soft for Morgana. Basic policy for the Pendragon siblings meant talking louder and louder the more in the wrong they were. Arthur had to ratchet himself down internally before opening his mouth to match his tone with hers.

"I understand that. I really do, but It smells Morgana. And you know I have to ream them out. It's distracting when they're dribbling curry everywhere.

Among the 15 people his company had paid to fly first class to London, from the new media group in Spain, 7 were habitually late, 2 violated dress codes and the bursar was still pulling the salary of an employee who'd been terminated months ago. The lunch had been intended to soften the blow that would follow.

"It'll be good for you, Arthur, talking to them over a nice, messy curry. You focus too much on appearances." Morgana gave him a condescending kiss on the cheek, and clip clopped away. He should have realized that a more relaxed Morgana was not necessarily any less of a harpy. He would just have to learn to deal with the group in a room full of carry-away.

Arthur burst through he glass doors to the conference room where the team was waiting and cast an eye over the sorry lot of them. More than half were still swilling the stuff that Morgana had gotten in and it had been two hours. The room reeked and the team looked spattered.

Well it certainly showed a lot about who could eat turmeric without getting yellow stains on their front, a rare few. Arthur suppressed a shudder.

He pulled on his own tie, still a pristine and perfectly respectable light blue and launched right in. If you waited for people, they learned that it didn't matter to be late.

"I will be brutally frank," he said, noting exactly who was gratified and who terrified to hear it and who, judging from their puzzled frowns, wasn't really sure what it meant.

He moved so that he was standing immediately behind two brothers, who had, inexplicably been hired for one position. The logic of hiring processes at the branch in Madrid was not one an outsider could understand. In this case He suspected it was because each brother was approximately half the size of your typical employee. They were sucking mango lassis, and were caught, mid-slurp in his shadow, looking like extras from the little rascals.

The brothers' assistant suppressed a small smile, a pretty girl with intense brown eyes and sharpt features. He'd already sussed out that Maria Luisa did all the work in their office. He caught the smile and returned it more broadly. Flustered, she looked down to hide her reaction and he felt himself relax; he'd already won over the only person who mattered, the one who was going to do the dirty work for him.

"This company is no longer a Spanish company," he said, happy to hear his voice bounce resonantly around the room. "It has been combined with a French partner in order to share studios, offices and equipment. Yet the structure of this office has not changed. Your current productivity is not double what it was before." He thwacked his notes on the table. "What are you going to do to justify your place in the new structure?" Thwack. "What are you going to do to justify your colleague's place?"

Let them peer at each other, wondering who to tattle on, the little sneaks.

Now Arthur leaned against the wall so that everyone but Maria Luisa had to crane their necks to see him.

"I'm not eager to let anyone go." He made sure to look at the people he wanted to axe: the giggly girl in inappropriately high heels, the stiff and pretentious exec who did nothing and the ones who were asleep. "The person who places the best answer to this question on my desk before 5 will be promoted to the branch office. Who else remains depends on their plan."

He nodded his head and stalked out. His work was done. Arthur liked to set up the marble run so that all the marbles went where they were supposed to go on their own. The assistant back there, Maria Luisa would have an answer well before 5 that was better than anything he could come up with; after all she'd been working with these people for years, poor woman.

She was already waiting at his desk when he got there, an oddly shaped manila folder in her hand. She must have worked it up at home before she even got here. Too bad the thing looked so unofficial. Really, why did continental stationary have to be so strange?

"I see you have some ideas at the ready. Maria Luisa, is it?"

"Yes." Her voice was low. He hadn't remembered it being so throaty. He cleared his throat for her. She continued, "I was thinking we could discuss it over a drink."

She looked up at him through dark eyes, her narrow but distinctive nose flared and she bravely pushed forward her little breasts. The woman was beautiful, intelligent and available. Arthur felt himself begin to sweat.

"Of course." He managed to make his voice the voice of the man she knew from the meeting, but inside he'd already begun to shrink. He knew what happened next.

Sure enough, 5 hours later Arthur lay pancaked under his own covers, staring at a patch of ceiling he knew very well. Maria Luisa sat naked next to him, looking down. He didn't need to look at her face to see the confused, disappointed expression, the look of exasperation and pity. He'd seen it too many times before

"You know at first I thought it must be he has a little dick." Maria Luisa said from somewhere above and to the right of him. "And I figured it's OK, he has a nice face, a nice ass. Choder. I never would have guessed you had no soul!"

Well that was new. Apparently even the almighty was disappointed with what he saw inside of Arthur. It was all a bit unfair. It wasn't his fault he couldn't do sex, really, in the lingering, masterful kind of way women like Maria Luisa expected from men like him. And there was nothing wrong with his penis. Arthur gave himself permission to turn on his side.

"I think you'd better go," he muttered.

He was already picking up the phone, as the door slammed.


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Arthur and Gwaine develop a working relationship.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just to warn you: Gwaine instigates some wildly inapporpriate fighting in this scene. I consider it canon for Arthur and Gwaine to tussle, but it might be disturbing for the reader in this context. It's intended to distract Arthur from his embarrassment and it does. But Warning.

"Arthur, it's a pleasure. I wasn't sure I'd see you again." Gwaine's grin said he wasn't lying; that it was a pleasure. Arthur wasn't sure how he felt about that, or rather he was dimly aware for the first time of a slick of gratification under his annoyance. It was uncomfortable. He didn't know how he felt about enjoying Gwaine's approval. He wasn't sure, if he picked up the wooden layer on top, what the slick would smell like down there.

"I came early," he said.

"Yes." Gwaine grinned some more. "Was that the problem?" He slapped his knee, laughing at his own joke. Arthur couldn't believe it. Now he was annoyed, unmistakably.

"How can you say that? There is no way that making fun of me is part of sex therapy."

Gwaine shrugged. "Oh I don't know. That's the first time you've said the word sex in this office and you weren't even wincing." He took Arthur's hand and Arthur was struck by the tensile strength in it. It reminded him of boys he had known growing up who had sailed, not that they had ever held his hand. "Anyway, I know that's not your problem."

"You do?" Arthur stared at his hand in Gwaine's. It was ....warm. He watched in frozen fascination as Gwaine lifted it to his lips and kissed it, eyes on Arthur's, intent rather than lustful or playful. His lips felt soft, pleasant.

Gwaine looked at him for a tick longer, obviously waiting for a response. A lot of phrases came to mind, mostly about not being a girl, and misplaced chivalry and what not, but somehow the bluster seemed gratuitous in front of Gwaine and he didn't say anything, just held his hand stiffly as if it didn't belong to the rest of him anymore.

"Well done, Arthur," Gwaine said. Arthur followed him with a clear head, relaxing a bit from the brisk, straightforward praise. He recognized a coach when he heard one. He''d always done well for coaches.

This time they went to the room with the bed. Arthur searched the room for a chair, but there was no place left to sit down. All of his certainty vanished. 

"You have to sit on the bed, I'm afraid," Gwaine said. Arthur added sadism to his tally of personality characteristics possessed by sex therapists. He felt a delayed blush warming his face.

"Fine." Arthur threw himself on the edgiest edge of the cover. Thank God it was serviceable maroon cotton and not shiny satiny stuff or he would have fallen. As it was he had to make furtive readjustments of his bottom to keep his seat, not easy with his arms crossed over his chest. "What are we doing here already?"

"Nothing too far out of your comfort zone," Gwaine looked as if he was enjoying Arthur's discomfort. "I'd like to hear why you felt the need to see me so soon when you were thinking about not coming at all before."

Arthur started to slide. He attempted to keep himself upright through application of quad strength alone, but in the end had to wiggle his bum a bit.

"I don't see why I have to sit here to talk," he said. "I mean is this the same bed you handled my sister on?" Rage was staining his cheeks red as he was forced by circumstances to say this last, but no one could make him look at Gwaine as he said it.

"Ah. I can see your point there, actually."

"Really?" Arthur looked at Gwaine, who was standing over him, and not smirking, for once.

"And I would move away from the bed, because of the associations with your sister, if that's what you wanted, but in all honesty I never touched Morgana that way. It's just as common for a sex therapist to have clients who are too sexual, who need help expressing fondness and intimacy with ordinary touch. She was one of those." 

Arthur buried his head in his hands. Did he really need to know that his sister was hypersexual? Because that was so much better than thinking she was frigid?"

"Fine, just get on with it," he muttered into the familiar dark space of his palms. They smelled good because his most intimate physical relationship was with his manicurist and he'd just been. Come to think of it, he could have just increased the amount of time he spent there, instead of coming to Gwaine. It would be cheaper. So what if Morgana made fun of him. Lots of executives, extremely straight executives tended to their hands.

"If you must know. And I guess that's why I'm here, right?" Arthur forced himself not to stick his hands in his hair again. There was product and eventually it would get greasy. "It's because there was a girl who liked me because of the way I am at work, you know?"

"And how are you at work?" Arthur started to answer but Gwaine interrupted.

"Pompous, stiff, overbearing?" 

Arthur flared up a little.

"Sexy, she thought I was sexy."

"Ah...." Gwaine seemed interested the way someone was at a company dinner, when his conversation partner finally hit on his hobby horse. "I think I'd like to see you at work, then."

Arthur looked Gwaine over. He was wearing tevya sandals and his toenails needed cutting. He wouldn't last for a minute at work. But who was he to judge? At Gwaine's place of work, Arthur was afraid even to sit down.

"Yeah, only by the time we weren't at work anymore and we ...got together, you know. She despised me."

Gwaine's eyebrow raised and Arthur hurried to stave off the question. "It wasn't that the working parts didn't come together; it's more like I was so uncomfortable it was like I wasn't really there. She said I had no soul," he added, sullenly.

"Well you've come to the right place. I'm really glad you trusted me with this, Arthur, and I guarantee we can get you knocking her socks off next time."

Arthur frowned.

"Aren't you trying to get me to enter into a committed relationship to build...I don't know.. communication or something?"

"Is that what you want?"

Arthur just looked at him helplessly. There were so many answers to that question and they all lay out of reach behind layers of yuck and platitudes and besides there wasn't any time.

"I think we'll just start with seeing if we can get you on a bed." 

Gwaine's smirk said that Arthur's discomfort caused no echoing discomfort in him at all. He was undoubtedly the kind of insensitive lout who could watch Faulty Towers without cringing. Oh well, no doubt that explained his success with Morgana.

"Fine, I'll sit on the damned bed."

 

"Alrighty then. I want you to think of a space where you might ordinarily sit on a bed with someone, where there was no expectation of sexual contract." Arthur heard the sound of Gwaine toeing off his shoes.

Arthur looked up into the light. "That's what a couch is for, isn't it now?"

Gwaine shrugged. "Flat mates from uni, roomates from school? Isn't there anytime someone like that who sat next to you on the bed?"

"I had roommates." Arthur remembered that. He also remembered that it made him anxious when they sat too close.

"Brilliant. Just pretend I'm one of them." And Gwaine swung himself onto the bed behind Arthur.

Immediately his heart beat faster. He was also dimly aware that the sensation was not entirely unpleasant.

"What are you going to do?" he asked, to say something.

"That depends. Do you like having your back scratched?"

"I don't know. I don't think I've ever had that done." None of his hook ups had wanted to touch him again after the initial disaster.

Gwaine chuckled. "Perfect, then that's where we'll start. Take off your shirt."

Arthur whipped his head around only to discover that Gwaine had already taken off his, and that his torso was toned and long and aesthetically pleasing. Gwaine stretched out his arms. "See I wouldn't ask you to do anything I'm not doing."

'I'm not stupid Gwaine. You know having us both half naked is twice as bad." Arthur was already taking off his shirt, though, muffling himself because...

Because the massage he'd had last time had felt good, actually, because Gwaine had listened when he was angry, because he'd wanted to enjoy the intense Spanish girl, instead of being so nervous about her that he hadn't even been sure that was true till just this minute.

He felt warm hands on his back, but Gwaine's voice came from a little ways away. 

"Now I keep my nails blunt so you're going to have to tell me if you prefer a scratching tool."

Arthur felt a light, not quite tickling sensation.

"That's the tool," Gwaine said, "and this is my hand." Now there was a softer, more tickly sensation. "Which do you prefer?"

He liked the tool actually, and damn if he wasn't just a little disappointed about that, not that he would mention it. Gwaine seemed to pick up on it anyhow, the weasel, saying,

"Don't worry; I'm going to have my hands on you in a minute anyway. I mean with shoulders like that who could resist?"

"Shut it, Gwaine!"

Gwaine laughed. "It's just a little harmless flirting, Arthur." Really the man was insufferable. Arthur had just been getting comfortable with the whole bed thing and he had to embarrass him again.

But in the end Arthur had hardly noticed when the back scratch had turned into a massage. When Gwaine raised himself up behind Arthur for leverage, breathing down his neck in the process,, he groaned.

It sort of hung in the air between them, the sound of Arthur begging.

Oh God no.

Arthur felt a purer form of the muffled anxiety he had with women. This wasn't a little case of nerves. This was the original terror. What kind of person begged like that, like a stupid cow? How vile he was - paying people to touch him. And the worst was that there would be sympathy. Soon there would be hemming and hawing and little exercises to do as Gwaine played the professional and helped the underdeveloped child he was along. 

Gwaine didn't say anything, as it happened. He stepped away.

Oh God, was he that disgusting? Perhaps he'd embarrassed the man, after all. Something cold cascaded over him, reminding him a great deal of that moment before vomiting. The unpleasant sensation was purely physical and all he could handle. He held his head over and waited for it to pass, relieved that what he had was just a migraine.

Before anything could get better, he felt a hand reaching under his arm pit. Gwaine was pulling him up from the table and holding him. Gwaine smelled very good. He wore an antiperspirant his friend, Lance, had favored once, only it smelled spicier on Gwaine.

"OK. Listen up, mate. You absolutely have to hold on exactly as long as you want to."

Arthur didn't say anything but he didn't move either. 

"You hear me, Arthur? I'm just going to let the old limbs go numb if I have to, got it? But if you don't want to touch me, you'd better push off. It's up to you Arthur. It's what you want. That's the rule."

That was the rule? It wasn't one Arthur had ever heard of before. Did he want to touch Gwaine? Then when he could have pushed away, now that he didn't have to vomit, Arthur remembered his sister's belly laugh and chose not to, burying his head in the hard warmth of Gwaine's shoulder. 

"Kind of a pity you don't have tits," he said looking up and away, as soon as possible.

Gwaine, who was not a nice person, turned his head to face him. There was no professional concern in his eyes, just a delighted glittering.

"We'll see," he said and he kissed him. 

Arthur had always considered kisses payments for something, he realized, not in a prostitute kind of way, more like a politeness, like please and thank you. Perhaps he felt he owed something for a person's company, or the time she laughed. Perhaps it was an obligation he owed for the attention he was paid or to the needs a woman no doubt harbored under her laugh or maybe to his own needs which reared up often enough that he knew he was a grown man, physically at least. 

This kiss came in answer to his shame and his longing both and chased both away. If Gwaine had spoken, even technically, even as a joke, the whole thing would have bobbed off, like a fatty tumor under the skin, slipping from someone's fingers, but he had only kissed and all of the hurt stayed and was soothed and the original groan he thought rejected came back to be met and encouraged and Arthur was surprised at what followed it.

Lust, a compulsion he had felt many times in front of a screen but never in any one's company came roaring up and it was so wonderfully convenient that Gwaine was here, that his lips were already on Arthur's so that he could widen them more, widen his stance and wrap his hands everywhere they wanted to be.

Arthur was aware that they were making noise. It was a sound he had always hated during sex, the smacking and the slapping of these wet places people leaked from when they couldn't control themselves.

He slowed down and pulled the sounds from Gwaine's mouth on purpose. They parted then for a moment. Gwaine was looking at him, flushed, grinning.

"What do you think about sitting on the bed now?"

Arthur looked behind him and felt his cheeks go red, remembering his own words.

"I can see how it would come in handy"

To his surprise Gwaine didn't resume the kiss. They were sitting, in fact, just as they were before except now they both had very obvious erections. Gwaine made no attempt to hide his, a big bulge trapped sideways in his tight jeans. Arthur's work slacks were more forgiving, especially as Gwaine didn't push him onto the bed as he'd expected and he began to wonder what he was doing. 

It was awkward to be sitting next to a man he hardly knew with his cock plastered against the front of his trousers. Arthur never liked seeing the outline of someone's cock and he avoided narrow tailored styles. An erection in tight jeans made him feel like some sleezy character in a movie from the seventies or like some masher in the library.

Arthur took a deep breath. He knew this reaction, the shame, the disgust were just what always happened when he felt desire and Gwaine...well Gwaine was just doing his job.

"So you're work's done here, huh?" Arthur found he could stand up now, without embarrassing himself. Of course he'd never had any trouble wilting quickly. A snatched glance at Gwaine's crotch showed he hadn't, still showing his dick off. "Congratulations. You're right. I'm a spineless slut. I want to fuck you and I was too much of a coward to admit it. Can I just pay my money and go now?"

His heart was beating fast, two large cups of coffee on an empty stomach fast, as if the blood in him was confused about where it was going and rushed to be everywhere.

Gwaine snorted and suddenly Arthur was just furious.

"Are you making fun of me?"

"No, you are." Gwaine's eyes were on his. "You've just got it backwards mate. This isn't spineless; this is good."

"How is this good? I feel like shit!" 

Gwaine shrugged. Why was he shrugging? As a therapist he should be holding Arthur's hand in a paternal kind of way and reassuring him, not that he would have accepted that, not at all, but it was the least he could do after pushing like that and now Arthur was not even going to make it to the gym before the reaction hit and he was laid up in bed like a depressed arsehole all day.

Once again Gwaine sought out his eyes against his will, so that he would have to turn away to avoid him. 

"Want to hit me?" He asked. Arthur looked harder. Gwaine's eyes were shining now. He probably thought he could take him.

"I do, actually."

"Alright, give it your best shot."

Few things had ever felt as good as his fist hitting that stubbly jaw. He put the full force of every smug grin of Gwaine's into it. He only had a moment to gloat, though, before there was an answering punch to his temple that made him stumble. Infuriating. Did this limp hippy, who probably wasted his adolescence with his feet up smoking cannabis on the floor think he could knock Arthur down?

They each landed a fair number of hits in what turned out to be a well matched fight. It wasn't quite full out. There were people in the waiting room, Arthur recalled between blows. Ironically he decided it was best to keep to the bed. There wasn't much room in there and they spent a fair amount of time rolling around on it, but oddly Arthur didn't pay much mind to that at all.. After Arthur had finally pinned Gwaine, they'd compared bruises, side by side on the edge where they'd started out and it was almost exactly like the feeling he had in the locker room after a good practice, like he belonged, that his body was a warm, useful thing that could never cause him any embarrassment.

The glow lasted all the way back to Gwaine's office door.

"So," Gwaine faked a serious frown, "What did you learn today, Mr. Pendragon?"

"That I can take you in a fair fight?" Arthur circled his wrist. He'd be OK to hold a pen, looked like, once he was back at work. 

"Yeah, we'll see about that. I was thinking something else."

"Oh that." Arthur sighed. It's not like he didn't know this was coming. He could always beat people up for free at a pickup game with his old rugby mates if it was just that he was after.

"I guess I am." He cleared his throat. "I guess I am attracted to, you know, people who are also men."

Gwaine rolled his eyes. "Please, we've both known that for ages. Try again."

Arthur blushed but this time it was just lingering heat in the face, as if he'd worn out all the shame ducts and couldn't produce more than that. He shrugged.

"We've learned your Spanish girl was right the first time. You are sexy ". 

Oh. It turned out Arthur had room for one more blush. "See you next week."


	10. Merlin Again

Gwaine got home to find Merlin stacking little balls on top of one another in the kitchen. He paused for a moment, not wanting to shock Merlin out of the poise he showed mostly when other people weren't looking. Finally he stepped back and Gwaine stepped in.

He was bubbling up with a grand mood, pleased with how things were coming along with Arthur. It had taken a long time before he'd found a pair of clients who'd known each other before they saw him, the way Elena insisted they had to. Arthur fit the bill exactly, and like his sister, he seemed to be making rapid progress.. Things were good at his practice, calling Elena in to a team planning pow wow good.

"What the hell is that?" he said. "Can I eat it?"

"Hey G." Merlin hefted a large bowl of chocolate aloft. "You can if you don't mind being part of my experiment. I've just got to dump this stuff over the top first."

"You know I like experiments, especially if they involve chocolate."

"Or me," Merlin added. Gwaine glanced up quickly, but there was no hurt in Merlin's eyes.

"Honestly, your ego." Merlin shook his head, pouring slightly off center with the movement. Gwaine found one hand darting out even as he kept his eyes on Merlin's, stealing a drip from the side. "It's OK, you know?" Merlin continued. "It was bad after Will went and, no you shouldn't have slept with me then, but I'm over it."

Gwaine didn't know what to say.

"So what is this?" He snatched a little ball. "Donut hole pyramid?"

"It's a croque-en-bouche. More to the point it's my audition piece, or the one after this will be. You're looking at the new sous chef, client charmer and dinner piano playing partner of Butterfield catering."

"Catering? How did that happen?" It wasn't that hard to imagine, actually. Gwaine had been there for the start of more than one of Merlin's artistic adventures. It had been drawing first, when they were small, followed by piano, then writing and now this.

"I met this girl at a poetry reading. Gwen. You'll love her. Anyway, she has the same problem, literature student no job, etc etc. only unlike me she's gotten a loan. Apparently she used to cook with her gran or something." He shrugged. "The old girl's going to taste my contribution and let me know tomorrow if I'm on board." He gave a huge cheeky grin. Merlin had an undefeated record with old ladies and he knew it. 

Gwaine kissed two chocolate prints onto Merlin's cheeks. Merlin reddened a little but he didn't look down. He was proud of himself, coming out of the fog finally after this last horrifying year.

Gwaine watched Merlin's satisfaction as Gwaine ate the profiteroles he'd made, daintily at first and then by the handful. They were delicious, but it was Gwaine's pleasure that Merlin was enjoying he knew, more than his own skill. Merlin had that about him that Gwaine remembered from when they were only small children, a delight in sharing that made his tin sandwich container and the cookies in it, orange scented though they were from sitting with half eaten fruit, taste better than anything Gwaine's mother made. Gwaine loved that about him more than he loved most things.

Some of the unslaked energy from his encounter with Arthur pounded his heart. It was in him to whoop and holler and spin Merlin around, but in all likelihood it wouldn't end there. 

"Croque en bouche. I like that. Sounds like cocks and bush. My kind of dessert. So does this mean you going to be paying your rent in ?"

"Stop being disgusting, Gwaine, you know we've talked about this."

"So we have, so we have. And you know I' m just kidding about the rent, now. 

"I know, G. And you know I will put in my share again when I can." Merlin wasn't really paying attention, already absorbed in assembling a new tower of pastry balls. 

They'd talked about this. There was no need to rehash it. Merlin would never owe Gwaine rent. God knew Gwaine had spent enough time at Merlin's growing up, eating supper and breakfast there, polishing off the last of the biscuits. They were his favorite, a whole slab of chocolate for which the thin layer of tea biscuit was only the delivery system. They were the only brand name food packet in the house and he'd always thought they were an indulgence of Hunith's. It was only years later he'd realized Hunith bought them for him when she could ill afford it.

Merlin shared his very mother with Gwaine.  
Merlin hadn't mentioned his fling with his best friend when he'd gone home for a few awkward weeks, unable to face the fallout from how it ended. It wasn't a case of cheating exactly. He hadn't made Merlin any promises, but he would have hated Hunith to find out that Merlin had surprised him with another lover. Merlin had known that, kept quiet. He'd preserved Gwaine's relationship with Hunith at the cost of confiding in her himself.

No, Merlin didn't owe him anything.

Gwaine retired to the washroom. He thought about taking a quick shower, running off to a club. There was also a meeting at the Methodist Church on London Road, but he didn't relish running into a therapist Elena knew. He could wait.

He almost changed his mind in the shower. It had been years since he'd put this kind of time into self stimulation, since he'd learned to drive and get out of his mother's house, in fact. Somehow, once he'd met Elena, he couldn't stop hearing her voice when he thought about sex, and even though it was an amused voice, rather than a hectoring one, he always felt like he couldn't look at someone else when he heard it. He almost never came home only to turn around, tossing his keys in one hand while calculating the quickest route to get laid.

He was all too aware of his oldest friend outside, covered in chocolate and full of the first happiness he'd had in a long time. 

Naw. It didn't matter how hot the man looked; Gwaine would keep his hands off.

He stayed in the shower till the water ran cold.


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Arthur fails to heed a warning.

For this session, Gwaine had made popped corn in his office microwave. He and Arthur were sitting on the bed together, watching a movie.

"So are we supposed to be making out?" Arthur had a very aggressive way of eating popcorn that bordered on rude, without quite making it there. "I feel a little bit stupid."

"Maybe you are a little bit stupid.'

Arthur smacked Gwaine upside the head and Gwaine smiled. Lately he and Arthur were getting to be sort of friends. "Maybe you want to go back to wrestling therapy?"

Arthur sighed. 

"No, I don't think that's going to help, really. I just don't see how this pretend date will either.'

"This is not a date because you're paying me."

"So what's with the popcorn?"

Gwain reached behind Arthur's waist to steal a piece of popcorn from behind his back. He whispered in his ear.

"We're practicing integrated intimacy, not just two people and a bed or a couch, an ordinary potentially flirtatious interaction that allows us to touch. You mentioned making out. Do you mean you want to kiss me?"

Arthur stiffened like an overstuffed tire, and turned his usual shade of red. It was becoming sort of endearing in its predictability. Gwaine would never have liked Arthur if they had met outside of this context. He generally avoided people who seemed unbending; they were always so full of themselves. Arthur had surprised him, though. When he did unbend, he went all the way with a surprising amount of passion. It generally took only a little push.

"I like your mouth," he said, looking at it. It was indeed very attractive like the rest of Arthur. "Very Mcjagery. I wonder if you could hold it still while I lick all the salt of you there?"

To his surprise, this time, for the first time, Arthur opened his mouth immediately  
He placed both hands on the nice broad plane of Arthur's shoulders and licked a slow stripe around. Arthur's mouth moved against his and Gwaine found himself responding.

"Yes. This is nice. Do you want to do more?"

Arthur paused. "You know I think I might like to do this with someone on a real date."

Gwaine pulled back and wiped his mouth. This was progress.

"Yeah? Anyone in mind?"

"I'll try again with the Spanish girl." Arthur was obviously one of life's goal driven types, hopelessly devoted to the top of the agenda. That kind of doggedness was not a good thing after a disaster date with someone. It usually led to either a slapped face or a restraining order.

"Going to Spain sounds like a good idea." Gwaine tried. "Get to a new environment where there are no prior expectations. It could be really brilliant for you."

"No," Arthur shook his head, "She's here. I told you. I awarded her the promotion to the London office."

Gwaine hated to break it to him. 

"It's not a good idea, mate. you've burned your bridges there, trust me." 

Arthur was starting to glower he saw, blond brows together. Really the surprising thing was that he'd ever been so diffident. Crap childhood no doubt. He remembered Morgana had said something about no mother for them. Nannies banging the dad and that kind of thing.

"I'm learning to pay attention to what I want in this part of my life." Arthur closed a fist over his breast. "And normally when I want something, I don't stop untill I've changed my mind or the option is closed forever. One girl, not liking sex with me one time is not closed forever."

It was odd hearing someone else voice so clearly what he felt about Elena. Gwaine had never put it to himself that way, but then he himself did not have a track record of persisting against opposition. He had tended to tease to get what he wanted.

There was something a little awe inspiring and yet also a little childlike in Arthur's certainty. It reminded Gwaine of something sweet he'd known once; he wasn't sure what.

"OK, OK, but don't say I didn't warn you."

He was rewarded with a somewhat rib crushing hug. Arthur's relationship with Gwaine's body despite the erotic associations remained very competitive.

"Oi! Knock it off. You're going to handle me a little more gently for the rest of the session. I'm going to be pretending to be a woman half your size."

"You're going to pretend to be a woman? How is that going to work?"

Gwaine prepared to be patient. So few people understood this.

"The differences between men and woman are far less important than the differences between one person and another. So the equipment's a little different, so what? Every body is a new body, every time. You have somebody in mind and she's a woman so that's who I'm going to pretend to be.

"But you're not her, so how does that help me?"

It struck Gwaine that Arthur was a very literal person.

"Obviously I'm not her. This is role play, a way to bypass the stuck, rigid parts of the brain and speak straight to the lover and the dreamer." Gwaine was pleased with this phrase. He thought it explained a lot in very few words. Arthur did not look impressed.

"Oh for pity's sake, that's bollocks."

"It is not!"

"You got that from the Muppet Movie! 

I did not

Yes you did You know, the lovers the dreamers and me? If that's where you're getting your ideas from I should probably ask for my money back."

Gwaine winced. It was possible that he'd gotten the phrase from Kermit the Frog. He and Merlin had watched everything Jim Hensen ever did. They had even put on dozens of puppet shows, for a tired but proud Hunith, trying not to fall asleep on the couch. And what he'd learned about role play there was worth more than anything he did for his psychology degree.

"I think if we're dealing with you feeling stupid and trying to pull rank, then we're exactly where you're going to be when you ask her out on that date."

Arthur's glare faded. "Oh shit. I hate it when you're right."

Gwaine sprang off the couch and started herding Arthur out the door. He felt the same gleeful anticipation he'd felt before each and every one of those puppet shows.

"Alright. I'm waiting behind the door in the office and you're coming in with a small gift, got it?"

Arthur held up a fist as if clutching a a bunch of something. "Not flowers." Gwaine added. "She's too smart for a cliche gesture like that. Remember you're starting over. Think powerful. Think I have an awesome dick."

Then he shut the door in Arthur's face and shifted his weight forward as if wearing a pair of heels. This was so much fun.

He really loved his job.


	12. Sisters and Lovers

Arthur stood by his sister's office, unable to respond to her invitation to come in. Morgana was wearing a cardigan. It was a pretty heather color, in cashmere and it went over top of a matching cashmere skirt. Woolen leggings were involved. Also, It was possible she was wearing walking brogues.

"What's the matter with you? Why aren't you looking at this?" Morgana's gaze, when she looked up from where her finger tapped the report was as sharp as ever. 

"What's the matter with you? You're not wearing heels or buttons or anything that could be used as a weapon."

Morgana actually blushed. It was over before he could whip out his mobile to record it.

"I'm leaving for the weekend after this. We're doing a walking tour and I thought if I was already dressed when he picked me up we'd get a little in before dinner."

She shrugged. Arthur tried not to look too gobsmacked. Morgana had never, ever dated someone she let see her at the office, to say nothing of carrying her weekend gear into the place.

"Who is this man? I'd really like to meet him."

He was rewarded with one of her semiannual unguarded smiles.

"Come meet me at our place for lunch and I'll tell you all about him."

Arthur looked at his watch. He didn't have time and he didn't think he could screw up his courage later if he failed now.

"Sorry, I can't today. I stopped by to tell you I have plans. Well, to be honest I'm asking somebody on a date myself."

"Oh, who is he?" Morgana's predatory gleam was the old familiar one.

"It's not a he, alright." He started to open his mouth to protest her insinuation, and then thought better of it. "not this time, at least."

Arthur waited for a reaction, his heart rate picking up, just a bit. They'd been easing into this for a while; it was just the first time they'd both admitted he liked men at the same time. He didn't shirk when she came over and gave him a soft, wooly hug, enjoying how she felt the same and yet completely different. She was not just softer, but shorter and she had changed her scent.

"We are definitely going out later to celebrate and have a good gossip about this." Morgana said, and gave him a pat. Arthur tried not to groan, because he knew she would probably not approve of Maria Luisa as significant other material for a myriad of reasons. "and then we're going shopping," She added.

"I thought you weren't doing that anymore?"

"It's not for me, Arthur. It's for Gwaine. The man's obviously a genius. I mean look at us! Dating! We have to get him something!"

Ten minutes later Arthur was sweating outside of another office door, trying to remember whether it was good that Gwaine was a genius or not so good, since the man had advised against doing what he was doing.

Then the idea of kowtowing to another man's opinion annoyed him so much that he was hardly nervous at all when Maria Luisa opened the door.

She was dressed better than last time, he saw, wearing something surprisingly individual for someone in the middle ranks of the upper rungs. It was a navy skirt suit with long lace cuffs poking far over her hands. The fit was cut tight to her narrow body and she appeared very much at home.

"Arthur Pendragon! Have you come to check up on me? I'm afraid after I saw you last time I never said thank you." She gestured behind her. "This opportunity in London is something I dreamed about but I thought I'd be old before I had it, if ever."

He nodded his head, taking her in. She was even brighter than he'd remembered. Perhaps her English had gotten better. He wasn't entirely certain what he was doing there. He eyed her narrow little knees and had a sudden vision of them pressed around his back.

"It's not a check up exactly." He coughed, fingering the pen he'd gotten her, something silver that hung on a cord, useful for signing things while walking down corridors, but pretty too. "May I come in?" he asked. Before she could say yes, he realized it was a mistake. He didn't want to see her here, where he was still her boss. "Actually, scratch that. I came to ask if you'd like to come out with me."

The minute when he held her gaze without flinching was a very long one. It didn't help that she wrinkled her nose.

"Oh no, Arthur. I think we've done this already."

He held up a hand.

"I know. I understand your reluctance, but" the cough strove to reassert itself and he battened it down, "I've been seeing somebody and I understand how to communicate better now to a woman. How about I take you somewhere tonight and we give it another chance."

He waited and counted his heartbeats, refusing to move or to freeze as he and Gwaine had practiced several dozen times in his office.

"Who is this woman you've been seeing?" She frowned. He let out a relieved laugh, despite himself. She was jealous!

"I meant a therapist," he said. "So does 6:30 sound alright?" He wasn't even surprised when she said yes.

 

They ate at ....on the Thames. Afterwards she agreed it would be good to walk off their meal and they walked in the general direction of her flat. Lights glinted on the water. He held her narrow little hand. They laughed about the people on her team and she leaned into his chest. He wanted his hands around her waist and put them there.

Had it always been this simple? Kissing her was nothing like kissing Gwaine, and- he saw the wisdom of this now- it was not just because she was delightfully manipulable, so light he could turn her on a point if he wanted. She also had her own style, somewhat more aggressive than Gwaine's actually. He found himself waiting with his mouth open to her insinuations and then he had to squeeze her shoulders tight just to get his own chance to explore.

That night was new and strange, full not so much of Maria Luisa as Gwaine's instructions in his head. Mostly they said, "Wait, wait." take the time to find what you need.

They lay down in her bedroom, a small space behind a relatively larger open plan kitchen and lounge. Everything squashed beneath him as he let her push him down. She had a water bed, it turned out. 

"Well that's going to make things harder," he said.

"Yes, I think so too." She winked.

It turned out to not be so hard, floating there watching her, listening to Gwaine. This time was nothing at all like the first because he was not afraid.

He was not afraid to observe. He was not afraid to pick up her hand and place it elsewhere. He was not afraid to stop and ask what she wanted. He laughed when his jaw got tired and admitted to being out of practice. He was afraid briefly of crushing her. She was so very tiny compared to Gwaine. Then it turned out that she liked how large and heavy he was on top of her and soon it was just as he imagined it with her sharp knees digging into his sides as he thrust into her, full of pleasure and thinking of nothing at all but that.

The next morning Maria Luisa made him coffee in her underthings, boiling it all on the hob in the espresso kettle, student style, while he openly admired her camisole set. The casualness of it surprised and pleased him. He'd imagined she was the type of person who wore silk all the time underneath, not this friendly white cotton. The white looked good on her dark skin and he didn't think he was going to want to wait till after breakfast to touch everywhere the two met. Eventually, after slapping his hands away, she gave in, climbing on the worktop and letting him lick between her legs with her panties balled up in his hand.

When they moved things back to the bedroom she returned the favor. Receiving was a little harder, he realised.. It felt somewhat awkward this time, with the domestic smell of coffee in air. Everything smellt more in fact, distracting him and he thought at first he wouldn't be able to come, but then he realized how obscenely hot she was looking up over his dick and that did it.

The old nausea never hit, the panic he associated with lust, not even in the bright light of day when they started talking afterwards.

"You know where I'd like to go, actually?" She said, feeding him a little toast in bed because he coudn't be bothered to eat in the kitchen.

"Where?" he sputtered a few crumbs, which she blew away in a blatant reference to several things she had done a few hours before.

"The zoo."

That was a pleasant surprise. It was not what he would have guessed she had come all the way to London to do, a child's outing. 

"Yes, perfect! I'm a member, you know."

"I am as well!" She called over her shoulder, getting dressed without any hesitation or embarassment, as if being naked or clothed made no difference.

He dressed quickly himself, in last night's trousers, forgoing the jacket and leaving his shirt open enough to reveal a tiny bit of the vest underneath. He felt rakish and foreign like one of her Spanish boyfriends, perhaps. He stalked after her

She was wearing jeans and a cheeky hat and a large jumper like some singer from the '80's. He had followed into the kitchen with the plan of sneaking his hands under the jumper, when it struck him that it felt like they'd been doing this forever. Maria Luisa was very new to him and yet her bossy, eccentric, effortlessly beautiful habits were very familiar. She reminded him a great deal of his sister.

Once he had the comparison in mind, Arthur found it very difficult to bury. At the zoo, everything got worse. The more fun they had, the more he thought of his sister. They argued over whether or not candy floss was a food and made bets over which of the animals in a display would move first and it was fun. It was also exactly the push and tug he had with Morgana. It didn't help that he'd been to this very same zoo with Morgana many times since they'd been small.

He was horrified when she rapped on the glass to get a bushbaby's attention in the nocturnal animal house. That at least his sister would not do. Unfortunately that did not make him like her more and he was uncomfortable when she snogged him afterwards in the dark.

By the time they got to the souvenir shop, he was mortified to realize that he only wanted to touch Maria Luisa if he wasn't thinking of her at all, like the worst kind of bounder. Of all the things he'd had to say to himself on the subject of sex, he never thought it would be, "well look at this; you're a fuck and run type after all."

Arthur sat on a bench with his head in his hands while Maria Luisa looked through all the key rings on the rotating display, praying that the feeling would go away before she got back. He did not want to be taking advantage of a woman who probably thought things were going well between them. He hoped she was just after a casual fling. He doubted it. The fact that she was an employee at a subsidiary company made him cringe.

He'd gotten her this job in a sudden flashy move, he'd bedded her much the same way. How was she going to feel after his rapid reversal? Probably afraid of losing her position.

He contemplated setting up a second date somewhere a little louder and more cosmopolitan, at a club perhaps where he wouldn't be reminded of his sister. Then he changed his mind. What would Morgana say when she found out? Morgana always found out. 

He told Maria Luisa when they got to the tube stop.

"So this is me," She looked up at him, eyebrow raised, obviously expecting something from him. He didn't kiss her.

"Right. Do you want me to bring you home? I can call a cab."   
She smirked at that and stepped closer. 

"I have to sleep tonight.. There's a meeting tomorrow. We can have the whole weekend next time." She reached up to kiss him and he squeezed her hand, pushing her off of him.

"Maria Luisa..."

She cocked her head at him, and narrowed her eyes.

"There isn't going to be a next time is there?" She snatched her hand away. ".Hijo de Puta. You change with the wind." She spat on the ground.

Arthur had almost forgotten how intimidating the woman was snarling in Spanish.

"It's just, well... there's no way around it." God Arthur wished there was. "You've started to remind me of my sister, and I can't stop thinking about it."

He tried to explain that Morgana was the person he loved and admired most in his life. She was not flattered by the comparison.

This time Maria Luisa did not laugh at him when he turned away. He could hear her crying which was much much worse.


	13. Chapter 13

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Arthur fails to heed warnings again. Gwaine goes with it.

Gwaine enjoyed his walk to the office at rush hour, holding his coffee aloft and, nodding at all the other people with lattes in their hands. Truth be told, he could have waited out the crowd at the cafe on the corner. He had the time. He was part of the hustle and bustle because he liked to be. The coffee cup was absolutely a prop.

One he placed on the stone steps to the building, letting the bottom get cold, so that he could peer under cover of his hands. Yes, that was Arthur Pendragon pacing in front of the entrance to the building. He seemed to think he was unobserved, occasionally stopping to shout something at the little fountain that bubbled up by the door.

"Arthur? Aren't you a little early, mate?" Gwaine dug in his back pocket for his mobile. "Your appointment isn't for 3 hours."

The man who looked back at him was not the same conquering hero last seen thumping his chest on Gwaine's couch. He looked a little deranged and his hair stuck up in the back.

"Are you here already? sorry. Hadn't figured you for an early bird." Arthur slicked his hair back and squared his shoulders. "I'm not trying to sneak in I just don't know where else to go really. I don't want to go to work, I don't want to go home and for the first time ever I don't fancy spending any time with the guys at the gym."

"Want to work out with me?" Gwaine thought Arthur's gym sounded like a lot of fun. "You know I'll enjoy seeing you all sweaty."

"Aaah! None of that! there will be no dirty talk. I'm giving that up as a bad job, along with seeing my sister."

"The lovely Morgana? Who would turn down a chance to see her?"

Arthur placed his hands over his ears.

"Gwaine, I'm warning you."

"Fine! Let's find that gym, shall we?"

They were half way through a very impressive set of bench presses before Arthur felt capable of speaking.

"So the Spanish girl," he grunted, twisting his grip a little so that Gwaine had to steady the bar for him. "She reminded me of Morgana."

"Ah, and that wilted your dick then?"

Arthur crashed the weights back into the cradle.

"Don't say that stuff here, OK?" He looked around. "People know me here."

Gwaine was about to suggest that it wouldn't be bad if some of the people at the gym started to think of Arthur and dick in the same sentence, given his needs, but he thought better of it. From all accounts the gym was something of a safe space for Arthur to unwind.

"Why don't we go to the whirlpool and you can tell me more while you soak that old rugby injury you're always bragging about?"

"It's not that I don't still find Maria Luisa attractive," Arthur confided, safely stuck foot first in a bath that was loud enough to drown out his confidence. "We had sex. It was, well it was the way it's supposed to be, like in a movie."

"But that's brilliant, Arthur!" Gwaine would have give him a high five if he could have managed it from the massage table he'd found to perch on.

"Yeah, but she disgusts me now because she reminds me of my sister."

Arthur maintained a glum silence.

"And the problem is?"

"The problem is I got her hopes up and then dumped her as soon as we had sex!"

Gwaine nodded his head. It was a mistake sure, but not anything irredeemable. Well, in truth he'd made the same mistake more times than he could count. He fidgeted a little bit on the massage table. "I'm afraid I'll never get my sister out of my head when I'm with a woman." Arthur was whispering. He did look terrified, with his eyes wide.

"Well to be fair, your sister is a very attractive woman. It's not surprising you like people like her"

"What is that supposed to mean?"

"It means you might be attracted to people who are attractive. It's OK if your sister is one of them; it's not like you're gong to act on it." 

Arthur was already red, but he expressed himself by breathing harder.

"I am not attracted to my sister. Because she's my sister. Anyway, I actually don't want to talk about that.. Look I was wondering." He looked furtively to the left and right. "I was wondering if maybe I should just focus on what you said before."

"What did I say before?" Gwaine thought he could guess, but it would be better if Arthur had to say it.

"I meant what you said about making more progress working on my suppressed attraction to men."

It was definitely a cop out. Arthur had burned through his problem with touch and expected that to be the end of it. But learning to enjoy sex was only part of learning to enjoy intimacy. Arthur's sister had been proof of that. Sex had been her only tool for expressing closeness. she'd been in therapy with Gwaine for months, learning how to say "I like you" without taking her clothes off. Now it looked like Arthur was somewhere around where Morgana started.

Of course it was possible that it wasn't an intimacy problem. Arthur might be one of those people who didn't feel romantic about females. Gwaine doubted it. 

"You just had a real breakthrough having sex, enjoyable sex with someone. Don't you think you should try to ask out another woman to see if they all remind you of your sister? It could be a one off."

Arthur hopped out of the hip bath and reached for the towel. He addressed his knee as he dried and flexed it, forcing Gwaine to strain his ears to hear what he was saying.

"I don't think I want to know just yet. I mean this whole experience was seriously disturbing. You did say something about learning deeper and faster with men?"

Gwaine shrugged. 

"Yeah, it's a bit of a crash course in dealing with your feelings because if you're ashamed of being with a man there will be lots of people who agree with you."

This time Arthur did look up. He had his pugnacious look back again.

"I don't care what other people think. That's what I want to do."

Gwaine eyed Arthur's immaculately manicured hands The man had never shown up in anything but just off the dry clean hanger glory. He was kidding himself if he thought he didn't care about public opinion. At least if he was having gay sex the blunt, clean nails would come in handy.

He clapped Arthur on the shoulder. It was by no means an unpleasant experience. Arthur had very good shoulders, nice and solid under the hand.

"Sure, mate. It's a bit of a detour but you're bound to learn a lot."

And Gwaine was going to have a lot of fun teaching him.

Three hours later a very antsy Arthur was holding on to a table for dear life as Gwaine gently worked a small glass plug into his arse.

"Is it too late for me to change my mind?"

Gwaine stopped, one hand still on Arthur's high round buttock.

"No, but this was your request. You said and I quote. "I don't want to be afraid of somebody doing something to my arse. Just keep going no matter what. We talked about it for 15 minutes."

Arthur peered skeptically behind him.

"Yes, but I thought you were going to tell me again that it didn't matter about men and women, different equipment etcetera. Etcetera"

Gwaine gave the plug one last twist and pulled Arthur upright.

"You're really kind of funny, you know that?"

He gave Arthur a kiss on the mouth. Arthur let out a surprised inhale that turned into a moan.

"Oh!" he said, rather stupidly.

It was obvious that his uptight client had experienced an unprecedented level of spontaneous arousal, as the kiss and the plug worked him from either end. Gwaine allowed himself to breathe into Arthur's ear, watching his nipple spike through the thin vest that was all he had on.

"Anyone can buy this equipment at a store. Shall I give you the address?"

"Yeah, sure."

Arthur fluttered his eyes shut and smiled so briefly he might have missed it. Like this he looked happy and innocent. He had a huge erection that he had forgotten to feel embarrassed by, poking out of his shirt. Gwaine doubted anyone, even the Spanish girl had ever seen Arthur like this.

And he really wanted to kiss him again. Shit. 

Gwaine had been attracted to his clients before. It was better that way, since he often touched them sexually. It healed a lot of wounds if he could be interested enough to hold an erection. This was in a different category.

He wanted to hover over that angelic expression and see how long he could get it to stay just by breathing on the eyelids. He'd snake a tongue over that wide mouth afterwards.

"Gwaine?"

Gwaine realised he'd shut his own eyes. "Late night for you, too, then?"

Arthur's malicious grin brought Gwaine back to reality. Arthur was his client. The whole point of Arthur...well not the whole point of Arthur, but the whole point of treating Arthur was to prove he could make a go of professional distance. Elena would not be impressed.

"Nah, just turned on. You look pretty hot there, mate."

Arthur blushed endearingly and looked down. He looked so much like Merlin for a moment Gwaine felt disoriented. How was that even possible? Gwaine knew for a fact that Arthur was a pushy, executive type, pretty much Merlin's polar opposite.

For the first time in his stint as a sex therapist, Gwaine wasn't sure what touch was appropriate. It would be consistent with the plan if he wanked Arthur, talked him through it. It might also just be what Gwaine felt like doing, because he really felt like doing that.

"So you liked that." He gestured to Arthur's lap and watched as the beautiful moment was wasted. Arthur's awkward attempt to cover his response and his mistrustful expression were ugly after what had come before, but at least Gwaine knew how to handle that. He placed a hand on Arthur's shoulder and looked him in his blue eyes, a completely different shape now that they weren't so open. "Your responsiveness was gorgeous. Anyone would really enjoy sharing that with you."

He tossed Arthur his clothes. "How about you get dressed and we'll talk about club etiquette and what you can do to make it clear what your expectations are."


	14. Chapter 14

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gwaine sees a therapist.

Gwaine's hard on for Arthur did not go away after the quick wank in his office bathroom before the next appointment came. It reappeared in the midst of scheduled touching of other clients and for the waitress who served him lunch. It was back again when he stood outside of Merlin's door.

"Merlin, you home?"

For the first time in months Merlin was not home. Probably he was out with his new friend, Gwen, planning their catering business. Gwaine told himself he was relieved.

He lay on his back and looked at the track lights he'd installed all over his ceiling. Each one conveyed a separate mood as it picked out different colors in the hangings and art pieces he'd collected, bumming around for years before he came home one day and unpacked it all. None of them could create a mood to fit how he was feeling now.

A growl of frustration built deep in his throat as he took himself in hand and thought of Elena hanging over his cock and licking with a pointy. cheeky tongue. She'd be a slurper he thought, loud but effective.

Merlin was a slurper. Gwaine groaned and turned over, willing himself to forget the fact, but all that did was clear his mind for a new performer, Arthur.

Arthur's shy, flickering glance, his big boyish erection, his stupid white underpants all featured in a short film strip tease that ended with Gwaine taking his arse virginity in a decidedly un therapeutic manner, complete with ruthless red palmed smacking.

Gwaine would have been willing to bet large sums in several currencies Arthur would like that.

He sure enjoyed thinking about it. Afterwards he lay back and waited for the buzzing of pleasure to turn into muzzy heavy sleepiness. It didn't. Instead the buzzing turned back into his heart and got loud there.

Why had he ever agreed to avoid the one person he wanted? No wonder he kept on wanting the people he was supposed to avoid. 

He really needed to talk to Elena.

The number rang. Gwaine knew she might not answer a strange number. He might have better luck with a text, but whatever else he might be, Gwaine was not a coward.

"Hello?" He had not imagined she could sound so cool.

"Hey there, Elena; it's Gwaine."

"Gwaine? Wait. How did you get this number?"

"I got it when you went to the loo on our date, but I haven't used it because we have an agreement."

There was a long pause. When she spoke again she sounded more surprised than annoyed.

"Does this mean you've called to tell me that you've won our wager? ."

Gwaine wandered over to the mantel and fingered Morgana's card. She'd sent it along with a wine colored cashmere scarf, thanking him for saving both her and her brother. It was proof incontrovertible.

"Not yet, though I'm very close."

"So no brunch then. Why are you calling me, Gwaine? It's 8 O'clock and we therapists get tired, remember?"

"Actually, I just want your advice. Well, that's not all I want, but it's all I'm asking for."

"What happened to saving me from taking on too many burdens?"

"You turned me down, remember?"

"Well, yeah, I suppose that's fair." He could hear a refridgerator door close,

"Look, you're good at what you do. You lit up every person you talked to at that crap meeting, the day I met you. I'm sure that's why..."

Gwaine had been about to say, "I'm sure that's why I want you." He stopped himself in time. "I'm sure that's why I trust your judgement. Come have dinner with me and if you tell me I can't do this client any good, I'll give it up."

She met him at a pub known more for its steak and kidney pie than for its atmosphere. The minute he saw her, he knew this was how she was at home. She was wearing joggers and trainers and a men's football jersey. When he saw it was an arsenal shirt, he felt hopes popping all over his body, the same ones he was afraid of feeding after dark. These ones were all fuzzy good guys.

"Ever see the movie Gremlins?" he asked, kissing her on the cheek. 

"Yes....and you ask this, why?" She sat down where there was already a pie waiting for her. "How did you know I liked steak pie?"

"How did I know that Arsenal was better than Manchester United?"

She looked down at her shirt.

"I forgot that we talked about that."

"And I see you learned the wisdom of listening to me." 

She opened her mouth to protest. "It's alright, Eelena. This isn't me pushing. I came for your advice and that's what it'll stay tonight."

She listened gravely, even as her slick hair slipped out of its bun and the inevitable meeting of mouth and blonde ends began. Her eyes were not blue doll eyes after all, he noticed, but depthless grey.

"Well," she sucked her fingers as she finished. "I'm going to respond for the time being as if no sex were involved, OK? We can add it back in later when I've got the dynamic down."

"It is not only natural but inevitable that you are drawn to some of your clients. People in the biz talk a lot about projection and what not, but I'd say it also happens that some people just like each other."

She looked at him and he nodded in confirmation. Arthur was not the only client of his kind, he was just the only one Gwaine fancied.

"And it's intense because you deal with intense things together, and you fall back on less spontaneous support in order to keep yourself clear of his personal life, yes?"

"Yes," She was wonderful like this, confident and bright eyed. He watched as she ordered a full pint of lager.

"No lady's half pint for you?" 

She looked up, lost in her train of thought.

"What?" He gestured at the mug. "Oh, yeah, I'm a thirsty gal."

Gwaine laughed. It wasn't a joke, but he was happy enough that the laugh spilled over.

"I'm going to cut to the chase," he said, leaning close enough that he might have kissed her, " and assume you're telling me to go on. Is that right?"

She frowned into her glass,

"Well I hadn't tried to add the sex back in yet."

This time he chuckled.

"Oh Elena, sex is always there. It's touching that does or doesn't happen." 

He brought her hand to his mouth and kissed the knuckles, trying to feel from the way she moved her hand whether she wished she had an excuse for more. The hold got slightly easier as he leaned over, as if she'd moved forward a tad. He hid his triumph before looking up. "Thanks. I'll see you at brunch."

When he got home, Merlin was back. He could hear him snoring behind his bedroom door. Gwaine snuck in and looked down at the dark curly head on the pillow. There was no sign of intoxication. The pillow was smushed too close to Merlin's nose, forcing his mouth open.

Gently Gwaine readjusted the bedding. Merlin was covered with smears of flour and chocolate and he smellt faintly of vanilla. He was still completely dressed. He'd probably collapsed in a heap after baking all night.

"Ach you daft bugger, should have taken the time for a shower."

He removed Merlin's shoes and socks and eased his long legs gently under the duvet, something he'd done far too often in the months right after Will's death when Merlin had been drinking too much. He hesitated and then kissed his friend's cheek.

What would it be like to squirm with disgust at touching someone you loved just because you considered them your sister? What he felt for Merlin was almost entirely a fraternal bond, but he never avoided the sexual side of his friend. Even now with the pie from his dinner with Elena still warm in his stomach, he could enjoy the pretty line of Merlin's back. He had pleasant memories of long, thin fingers trailing up his chest. It was hard to say if he would have felt as Arthur did if he had real family. Gwaine did not have any blood ties, apart from his parents and he didn't like them.

He returned to his room and fell into his own fast sleep.


	15. Arthur Meets Merlin

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is short. Don't worry. They meet again.

Club music. The rhythm was crude and the volume was loud enough to vibrate his bones. Standing outside, Arthur had thought it sounded ominous. He didn't like shivering in the too tight shirt Gwaine had ordered from Amazon for him, and he'd hated being appraised like a bull up for auction, as he waited for the bouncer to lift the rope up. Now safely in, Arthur appreciated it. In the dark, with the music dictating how he moved, he was unable to think. Dumb felt good.

The club was busy but not seething. Gwaine had described it as the kind of place people went first, to get warmed up before venturing some place more hard core.

It was definitely a gay club, though. Every white shirt glowing under the black lights covered a man, twisting and turning next to another man, or men. Arthur was amazed at how easy it was to look shamelessly at whoever he wanted. Now he knew why Gwaine had insisted he come here instead of the straight friendly place Arthur had mentioned first. He didn't have to try to open up the part of him that liked the turn of a meaty shoulder, someone's package brushing accidentally against his arse, his teammate's smile. Man lust was normal here and he didn't have to do a thing.

More than once as Arthur stared someone winked or turned his body toward him.

Eventually someone sweaty with a cap on leaned the cap on his shoulder and started to gyrate behind him. Arthur raised his arms up to give the man more room and they were dancing together. Arthur wasn't good at dancing, of course, but he could move his hips and open his mouth. 

It was strangely relaxing to know that none of the people in the room expected anything from his touch. Yes, there were people who would like to do more and others who were going to decide they didn't want him, who were going to step away and move on.

But he was doing the same, so it didn't matter. Arthur relaxed the muscle that kept his eyes moving away from eye contact. What if he just looked where he happened to look?

The man in front of him was a little bit older and not very tall. He had an intimidating physique, a mass of muscle compressed into a smaller frame. His pecs rounded out his shirt and his shoulder, if Arthur touched it, would stretch out his hand

When he caught Arthur's eye he smiled and suddenly Arthur realized he was a human being, probably even a nice human being. The nerves that had gone numb in the music and the hot fug of the place, screamed awake. Did he want to know this person better? Had he maybe seen this person already, wearing a green apron at a garden center?

He looked a little familiar and Arthur thought of the time he'd bought Morgana that rose bush. There had been a man there he'd checked out, hoisting things. He'd accidentally made eye contact then, too, and looked away. Fuck, yeah, the guy looked just like him

All of Arthur's confidence escaped him. He turned around, seeing the startled man with the cap for the first time, face to face. He was more made up than Arthur would have thought, pale with powder and he wore lipstick and eye liner.

 

Arthur had been fucking this David Bowie look alike through their clothes, almost. His arse knew exactly the length and shape of a man's cock whom he would never have chosen to talk to, ever.

"Sorry. Need the loo."

The man changed from surprise to indifference almost instantly. His face, painted to exaggerate his features, looked like a mask now, with blank rolling eyes.

Arthur didn't make it to the loo before he had to sit down. There was a migraine lurking in the back of his skull, thinking of stepping in and taking all of the other feelings away in favor of spiraling pain and nausea.

Arthur really wished the table he was sitting at wasn't glowing green and fuchsia. He closed his eyes and buried them in his hands, but it made no difference to the white strobe lights. He could still feel them turning through the back of his sensitive head. Brilliant. A new superpower. Hah.

"Um, Excuse me?"

"Ugh." If Arthur was too afraid of moving his head to laugh at his own joke, he was certainly not going to look up at this guy.

"You're sitting in front of my drink."

Arthur didn't even snort. The world had stopped being divided among gay, straight and other and resolved into two camps: in pain, and not in pain. Mr. Not-in-Pain could just reach in and get his drink, himself, couldn't he? "You're about to spill it actually."

Arthur tore his head out of its haven. A man was frowning down at him through a mess of dark hair. He had a long face and lips, lots of lips, down turned.

"Why don't you just take it then?"

The man huffed and squared his shoulders. Now that he had his eyes wider, Arthur could see he was not put together like most of the other people at the club. He was tall and spare and slightly overdressed in a button down shirt, open half way down. Maybe he was beautiful, maybe weird looking. Arthur wasn't sure.

"I don't want to just barge in, do I? And squodge up on some stranger. Some of us have manners!"

Arthur started to laugh, thought better of it and sneered instead. "That's a joke isn't it, in this meat market? Who isn't trying to squodge up on some stranger as you put it?"

The man opened his mouth and snapped it again.

"Fine! Have it your way."

The next thing he knew, Arthur's hips were moving radically sideways as the newcomer forced him over on the bench. They both watched as the man's own elbow caught the drink, which spread over the table and began to drip over the edge.

This time Arthur did laugh. 

"So that was a futile effort."

"Buggering fuck." For a moment, the man's face, following the drip with a forlorn expression, reminded Arthur of his neighbor's little basset hound.

"Hey, you can get another one." 

"That's easy for you to say! We can't all afford to waste a cocktail at these prices!"

"Oh." Arthur was surprised. He'd thought the drinks were quite reasonable. "Why did you come here then?"

"Because my friend thinks I need to get out. She literally dragged me to the door. Believe me, I'm regretting it."

As the man talked, Arthur felt a delicious right sensation. It was the absence of pain. His migraine had given up! Celebrating this miracle, he hardly noticed when his companion stopped talking, though he felt his glare. "Why am I telling you this? This is insane, isn't it? Why can't I stop talking? It's not like you care."

Arthur might care. He hadn't decided yet. The man was looking around now, somewhat frantically, throwing off sweat. Arthur could feel a drop of it on his face. He touched the spot with his finger, watching its twin wind it's way down the man's exposed torso. There was a shirt under the other shirt, but it was nothing, a rag. Arthur imagined his hand on the chest feeling the wet underneath it. He opened his mouth to speak, but the man beat him to it. "Oh thank God. there she is. Gwen!"

Arthur saw her too, one of the only women in the place. She looked tiny compared to all the men around her, but she had at least twice as much hair as any of them. She waved at the drink guy, took in the situation in one glance, made a frowny face followed by a smiley one and pointed back to the bar.

"Merlin, come over here. I'll buy you another."

This Merlin bloke was just going to leave everything a sticky mess! And after he'd been so self righteous, too. Arthur reached out and grabbed him.

"Hey slow down there, aren't you going to do something about the marsh scape you made of the table?"

Merlin looked behind him and shook Arthur's hand off.

"You mean the one you forced me to make by sitting in my place and refusing to move?"

"I had a headache. I had a right to sit down!"

"You know I don't think we're going to be sitting here, after all, mate. Enjoy having it to yourself."

Arthur heard him mutter something like, "Pushy prat" under his breath. It was really outrageous to leave a mess and blame Arthur like that. It was the kind of thing that usually made him boil over, the kind of thing that had him showing up at Morgana's office to rage about it until finally she said that he was boring her and kicked him out.

If he saw that skinny, hypocrite again he'd have to tell him then. Meanwhile there was an evening to dance away. He at least did not need to be have his hand held just to go to a club.

Arthur eased himself out of the booth, careful not to soak up any of the spill

The song coming up was one he knew and it had a suggestion in it of what he might possibly do with his body if he wanted to dance. From being so sick before, he felt surprisingly good.

He ended up dancing for several more hours, flirting and easing in and out of various tangles. It was exciting, as if he were expecting to find out some good news all night. He sort of hoped that idiot and his friend would come by and see him not pushy at all, and not the kind of person they thought he was. He looked at the door every time someone left, but he didn't see marsh monster Merlin again.


	16. Who's this?

"So Arthur, are you still following the one, one, one rule?" 

Morgana, leaning over his desk, blocked the light and Arthur cursed as he lost his place on a rather minutely rendered earnings table. He refused to look up.

"Do you mean the spelling rule or that silly thing I made up at university?" 

Back then Arthur had a made fuss over his study habits and claimed that seeing more than one person, more than once a week for more than one date would inhibit his ambitions. The one-one-one rule - all to hide how scared he was of sex. He tried not to think about what a waste of time that was now. "Come to think of it, I don't care. Go away."

Arthur attempted to block her from view by holding up the report he was looking at. She pushed it back down again.

"I'm trying to ask you if you want to go out again. I know you went to a club this week already, not that you've shared any details."

"I think I spend enough time out, thank you." Arthur was clocking more hours than he cared to admit, nipping into clubs, hoping for something to happen. "And I just might tell you who I'm meeting there if you are very, very nice to me and let me get some work done."

"Aren't you self absorbed,". Arthur looked up. Morgana's tone had sharpened up, never a good sign. Her eyes were narrowing into green slits, generally a sign that he was going to get whalopped.

"I'm sorry, Morgana. There's something you need to talk to me about?" 

"Yes! You may not want to talk to me about whomever it is you're seeing, but I'm past that. I want you to meet Leon."

"Oh! Mystery man has a name now?" Arthur had seen the name before, on hastily clicked-away emails, but he had never discussed her new relationship with Morgana in any but the most general terms. He hadn't questioned it because there had never been any point meeting Morgana's victims before. And frankly, he was a little frightened of talking to her about things having to do with dates, since that whole thing with Maria Luisa. "Fine. You win. I admit to morbid curiosity about this poor man. But you are paying for my meal."

"Done." Morgana grabbed his overcoat and held it open. "Let's get a move on. Our reservations are in half an hour."

"By all means, let us hurry. I definitely want to meet this Leon while he still has his limbs intact. Might not be much left after you've been dating awhile."

"Har de har har."

Morgana pinched his arm, which Arthur thought only reinforced his point.

* * *

Once they'd rounded the second, familiar corner Arthur stopped short.

"Hold on, you're not taking him to Florins are you? But that's our secret! You don't want to start running into people there all the time!"

Arthur would never, ever bring someone to their special boite and he'd always assumed she wouldn't either.

"I thought maybe Leon wouldn't count, since he's to be family."

Morgana tilted her face up to him. It was a different face than when they were little. The jaw had firmed almost like a man's when the baby fat melted away. The way she tilted her chin now was absolutely familiar, though rare, a way she looked only when she was not sure she could have something.

Arthur looked away from Morgana's unspoken question. They were standing in front of one of the last phone boxes in the neighborhood, a brave upsurge of red between the grey pavement and sky. He remembered it well and not just because it was on the way to Florins. She'd rung him from its shelter a number of times on rainy Friday's, confessing that she had too many shopping bags to fit inside and could he drive her home before it got worse? 

Arthur had worried about her, of course, but a certain part of him had also felt gratified that he could help her, that she needed him.

Well that wasn't a favor she would need to ask again. And she would be ringing Leon from now on, wouldn't she?

Morgana laid a hand on his arm. "It's way too early for an engagement or anything yet, but it's serious, Arthur. And I want the two people I care most about to get to know each other."

Arthur felt the countdown to respond. Morgana never made herself vulnerable for long. There was a timer that would go off at some point, when this confession would turn to anger. Sometimes, when he was confused or angry himself, Arthur missed this point. He didn't want this to be one of those times. He picked up her left hand and pretended to inspect it.

"You're going to get a ring on here, then?"

She shrugged and smiled to her eye teeth. "If you could gently steer Leon to a well cut sapphire, at least five carots, I'd appreciate it."

"Oh Lord, I hope the man can afford you."

Arthur dropped her hand and started walking again, knowing Morgana would hasten to catch up. She loathed being behind.

"Not really, he's some kind of biologist."

"Hm."

"I like that about him," Morgana said.

"Hah!" 

Morgana had never dated anyone who earned less than she did. Well, she had never truly dated anyone before, though the men themselves had sometimes thought otherwise. Arthur found himself completely unable to imagine what kind of man, what kind of biologist could have tamed his sister.

Leon was very likeable, it turned out when they met him already waiting outside the restaurant. He was handsome but not too handsome, friendly and easy in the way that he shook Arthur's hand and kissed Morgana's cheek. He didn't seem competitive or territorial at all. Arthur didn't get the impression as he kissed her and took her coat that he was demonstrating anything for Arthur's benefit. None the less, Arthur felt something fizzing away inside of him. He realized he was hoping there would be something wrong with Leon.

They were seated in the same corner as always, three around the table. There were Irises in the vase and Arthur realized it was spring. The warm weather had stolen a march on him while he was busy climbing corporate towers and boogying at night clubs.

Their irises were more numerous and more purple than any of the other 12 tables. ARthur always suspected the owner of harboring a passion for Morgana. Poor man would have to be disappointed now.

When the waiter came- It was Lucien,myopic with a softly fading blonde comb over-Leon ordered Arthur's usual, which resulted in Arthur ordering Morgana's usual. Morgana, typically, refused to change her order so that they both ate salmon, even though she knew they always shared. Arthur found himself eyeing Leon's beef Bourgenion with regret.

"You want a bite?" Leon pushed his plate toward Arthur, "I don't mind sharing."

Arthur stared at the man. Didn't he know they had just met? Cautiously he reached out a fork and scooped up some of the meat. 

"You can have some of mine," he forced himself to say. 

To his dismay, Leon flashed out his fork.

"Delicious! Here. Have it back again. I'm afraid I'm going to gulp it all down if I'm not careful."

Arthur scraped his plate back. His face must have betrayed his confusion because Leon laughed. "I was one of four boys, you know. It's all about survival of the fastest." His eyes twinkled, making them look bluer somehow and his hair slightly auburn by contrast. "I think that must be why I went into Animal Behavior."

Four boys! Arthur and Morgana's eyes met over the table. They had grown up with 4 bathrooms, but only one sibling. How could one possibly keep track of so many family members or even bother to hate any of them? No doubt Leon could handle the two of them and their various sulks in his sleep. 

"Do you like wine?" Arthur asked, knowing he was admitting defeat. "The owner always keeps a couple bottles of ours for us, as a courtesy, since we're here so often. It's not too late to bring one out."

"I do like wine, thank you, Arthur. What would you recommend?"

Arthur opened his mouth to speak. He hesitated maybe a moment too long, deciding between the rather special Côte de Rhone he had been saving to surprise Morgana with on her birthday and the Riesling which wouldn't go quite so well.

"Oh bloody hell."

Morgana laughed and after a beat, Leon joined her.

"Don't think I like the sound of that vintage, actually, Arthur. Unless maybe it's one of those Australian twist top things?"

"Sorry I just realized I'm late. I forgot I had an appointment this evening. Of course you should have the Côte de Rhone." He smiled at Morgana, who smirked back, obviously well up on what Florins had in stock for Arthur and why. "Good to meet you, Leon. Good night, Morgana."

Arthur fled for Gwaine's office, all too aware that Morgana would guess where he was going. He wondered if she would have finished telling Leon all about Gwaine and what he had done for them before he got there. They were going to get engaged, after all. She probably told Leon everything, even things about Arthur. It made him feel a bit funny, as if someone had asked him for a favor right before he was going to offer anyway and soured the gesture.


	17. Gwaine Takes Arthur to the Next Level

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: The next several chapters are the Arthur/Gwaine

"You're late!" Gwaine crowed openly. "God it's been months and I've never caught you out before." He looked Arthur up and down, the door still open, "Tell me you were at some bloke's flat, called in sick and forgot the time."

Arthur looked pointedly at the waiting room behind him where several young women and an older man were pretending not to listen, fingers frozen on smart phones and magazines.

"You're right about the last, anyway. Do you mind if I come in?"

"Not at all." Gwaine went and hogged the only chair as he usually did when he thought there might be a turning point in Arthur's therapy. Arthur thought of it as his therapist throne, a detail he hadn't mentioned, no matter how often he rolled his eyes at Gwaine for other things..

"Actually, I was meeting Morgana's boyfriend and I lost track of time."

"Leon? He seems like a good thing."

Arthur decided not to comment on Gwaine's knowing more about Leon than he did. He was surprised but he supposed he shouldn't mind.

He looked at Gwaine in the chair, one knee crossed over the other, wiggling his toes. He was relatively clean shaven this time, just the 5 0'clock shadow on his jaw. His eyes as always were bright. Arthur hadn't really looked at Gwaine for a long time, certainly not since he'd let himself enjoy looking at men so much. He was very attractive, wasn't he?

"So I'm waiting. How did it go?"

"The club? It was..." Arthur wasn't sure how much of the ups and downs to go over. He cut to the chase. "It was freeing. It was really hot, actually, in every sense of the word."

Gwaine leaned forward, his hair swinging with the movement. Arthur caught himself lingering on his clavicle where the shirt opened a bit. 

"Meet anybody?"

"I made contact with any number of pelvises. That got a bit dicey a few times, actually. I almost had a migraine."

"But it was hot. Correction. Somebody was hot."

Gwaine looked absolutely sure about this.

"Somebody was rude...and, yes, I suppose he was hot." 

Arthur had never finished making up his mind about Merlin. There was something uncomfortable about the encounter with the clumsy idiot, something that made his eyes, wide with horror and narrow with vexation, clear in Arthur's memory when he couldn't remember anything about the other men he'd spent time with at all. But they hadn't liked each other.

"So are you ready to have sex with a man?"

"Absolutely." Arthur surprised himself saying this. He saw he had surprised Gwaine, too. His eyes met Arthur's for a longer, assessing look.

"Do you want to try something out?"

Arthur's heart thumped as it had not since that first awkward appointment. It was not nerves, or not just nerves. His racing heart reminded him of his experience at dressage, the first time in the season when he would approach the jumps or the first time he tried a higher one. 

"What would you suggest?"

Gwaine stood up and walked closer. He put his hands on Arthur's shoulders.

"What ever scares you, I would think. Or whatever seems safest. Your choice."

Gwaine smelled of sandlewood soap, as always. He was as scrupulously clean as he was slovenly, which made sense in his line of work. The men he'd danced with had also been clean, but their natural scents had started to sweat off them, after a while. At the beginning of the night, Arthur had found this somewhat vile, but by the end, after a couple of hours of turning and turning into his body and other bodies without touching any one's hand, Arthur had started to crave it, to follow this hint of the other person's individuality with a secret delight.

Not many of them had smelled as good as Gwaine. And he didn't trust any of them the way he trusted this man here.

Arthur wanted to hold him and sink his nose into his neck. He wanted to marry this scent with other sensations, as Gwaine lifted his arms up and Arthur moved his arms down. Arthur licked his lips, trying to get his voice to leave the confines of his throat.

"Hold it right there." Gwaine backed away as if Arthur were some sort of excitable beast. He quickly reached over to his computer and with one hand scrolled to a setting, never taking his eyes off Arthur.

Arthur frowned as music started.

"For some reason I thought we were going to recreate a club scene again," he said. Spanish guitar music seemed a little cheesy and soft, by comparison.

"Yeah, this has a gentle beat. Don't be fooled though; it's going to coax you slowly into revealing all kinds of things."

Gwaine took Arthur in his arms. He was not leading exactly, certainly not bracing his shoulders and rubbing his belly like a Latin dancer. His hand rested on Arthur's lower back.

"Show me what you like, Arthur," he whispered.

"That feels good."

"Me breathing on you?"

Arthur couldn't see Gwaine's face, but he could hear the smug smile in his vowels. He growled.

"You being so close. The way you..." Arthur didn't want to say out loud what was easily bandied about when he was only talking to himself. He reached his hands down Gwaine's back so that his hands were like Gwaine's, on his partner's lower back. He cupped his hands over Gwaine's buttocks and gave a terrific squeeze. Gwaine's arse resisted more than he would have thought. It was harder than a woman's. Did Gwaine like being squeezed? He stiffened his hands, uncertain.

"You're rushing." Gwaine stepped back. "You were afraid to finish that sentence. Is there something you need to say?"

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean..." Arthur knew he was blushing as he hadn't since the first few months of therapy, since before Marie Louisa.

"Don't be sorry. Do it again. Mean it this time."

Gwaine ducked back into Arthur's embrace and placed Arthur's hands firmly on his backside again. Arthur could feel him arching a little into his palms like a wanton girl. No, it wasn't only girls who did this. What had happened to the freedom he'd felt at the club to tip his own arse back like that? Not that he'd reached out for anyone else's. It had made him nauseous the few times he tried.

He squeezed more. Slowly this time. He watched Gwaine's face. The eyes were fluttering closed as Arthur squeezed and than kneaded.

"God you're tight."

Gwaine's eyes opened up again, and yet Arthur didn't mind being caught in the middle of an accidentally racy remark. "Not like that."

"No, I didn't think so. Not yet, anyway."

"What do you mean?" 

"I mean You can fuck me if you want to, Arthur. I'm here for you."

He certainly was. Arthur could feel Gwaine's groin hot and swollen against his. 

"Oh shit, I need to sit down."

There was only the bed as usual. For months Arthur had thought nothing of this, now it seemed like a soft, alluring sand pit of doom, something that would entice Arthur deep into lusting and -his mind supplied a rhyming word-thrusting, only to heave him out in the end, slime ridden and ashamed.

Arthur sat.

Gwaine looked down at him, running a hand through his hair, grinning his goofy grin.

"Arthur, Arthur this is very good. I think you still feel your desire even though you're nervous, even though you know me, personally?"

Yeah, knowing Gwaine personally was not a problem. It was not a goad either; he was not seeking him out as he had Marie Louisa.

But he hadn't sought her out anyway. Not really. It was she who had offered herself that first time. Arthur had not sought out a person to touch ever, he realized, even at the club.

He reached out a hand to Gwaine.

"I like you. I mean, yes, your clothes tend to the smarmy and you obviously haven't any common sense, but," Arthur felt himself swallow, his body trying desperately to erase the words as they were spoken, "if it had been you at the club I would have had a brilliant time. I would have done...more."

Gwaine took his hand and Arthur knew that he had stopped breathing. He looked into Arthur's eyes.

"I want to be very clear on this, Arthur." Arthur tried to pull his hand away and Gwaine resisted. "We are not in a relationship."

"Obviously." Arthur stiffened inside of Gwaine's grip and turned away. 

"Not so obviously," I think. Gwaine sat down next to Arthur. "You are doing so well and being so brave that we're taking this part on sooner than I anticipated." He heaved a sigh and let go of Arthur's hand. "I like you, too and I definitely find you attractive," His grin turned wolffish and Arthur was mortified to feel himself relax, relieved. "But you have to pursue other relationships and so do I." Then, deliberately, he picked Arthur's hand back up again.

Arthur looked up, forced his hand to let go of its tension and then tried to pull it back.

"Uhuh, I'm wise to that trick. Unless you really don't want to maintain contact with me like this while I talk to you, I'd like to hold your hand to show that I am comfortable with you, that I like you and I accept you with or without any other kind of physical relationship. Has anyone ever held your hand like that, Arthur?"

Arthur thought of Morgana. He had that feeling when he slipped her coat over her shoulders or when she bought him a tie and held it up to see the color, but they didn't hold hands or hug much. He shook his head.

"Right. So I just want you to know that this level of intimacy will always be available between us, even as the other, sexual, explorations come and go."

Arthur nodded his head, looked away.

"Arthur." Arthur looked up. "Do you still want me to lead you through the process of having sex with a man?"

Gwaine did let go of his hand now and placed it on Arthur's shoulder. "Wouldn't you like to be ready next time, when you meet that interesting person you're not talking about?"

Arthur nodded again. "Brilliant. I want you to think about him, while we do this, OK?"

"He doesn't look much like you." Arthur saw Gwaine was gearing up to protest. "I know. I know, obviously you didn't look like Marie Lousia either. Um...should I call you by his name?"

"No," Gwaine hovered his mouth over Arthur's. "No names. What if I knew him?"

Arthur snorted. In a city of millions that hardly seemed possible.


	18. The Next Level:  Gwaine's Perspective

Gwaine stood back for a minute, glad that he kept his office just a tad warmer than was usual. Arthur looked comfortable, lying on the bed, his head on his folded arms, his eyes closed. Naked.

No one who had seen this man when he first came to the office, stomping in with a stride that was wrong for the space with his fist balled and his jaw tight would ever have guessed he could bare himself like that.

Right now everything was balanced, perfect. The next step would knock it all to hell. Arthur's mouth would open, his fingers would clench and his eyes would roll back. Best case scenerio that would be in pleasure, but more likely there would be terror as well. It was almost a shame not to leave him here, calm in the intermediary stage.

The situation was a lot like the first time that Merlin had made a successful fondant. He'd called Gwaine in to admire the beautiful wrapped cake and then confessed that he couldn't bear to cut into it, even though the recipe called for the cake to be made into shapes and built like a sculpture. Gwaine, resident insensitive lout, had sliced into the creamy, unbroken surface for him, laughing while Merlin peeked through his fingers and whimpered.

Gwaine watched Arthur reach back and scratch innocently at the swell of his arse. It wasn't the first time he'd seen it. There had been that first, awkward introduction to the delights of butt plugs and internal hygiene. Back then Arthur's squeamishness, his sweating, cursing and snide remarks had made the whole thing farcical and cut back on Gwaine's enjoyment. He'd noted that Arthur had a fine backside and left it at that.

Now, after the massage he'd just received, Arthur was open to Gwaine's hand and it was lovely, all easy and pleasent the way Gwaine liked it. This he was good at. This was what he wished he could have shown Elena. This was him.

 

He hovered his hands over the top of the round of Arthur's bum, pressing with nothing but his own body heat. Arthur legs fell apart slightly, as he relaxed even more. Gwaine felt grin opening his own mouth as he leaned forward and his necklace brushed the Arthur's back. He breathed up the thick back, using his stomach muscles to do it, to keep only just there till finally he made it to Arthur's ear, placing his hands on either side of Arthur's and planting a knee

Arthur let out a soft moan.

"Feels tickly, nice."

"It's going to feel even better soon."

Oh yes, it was. 

 

Gwaine placed a kiss on Arthur's neck and then another one closer to the juncture of the shoulder and another close to his ear. He was no longer waiting for and cateloguing responses, just delighting his mouth with softer, warmer places of Arthur, the ones that came close to pulsing with his heart beat.

His other knee had long since found its place and he was straddling Arthur from behind. Gwaine sat on Arthur's rump and put his hands to his shirt

"Are you taking off your shirt"

"Yes," Gwaine was talking through the cloth, already half way there. He felt Arthur twisting underneath him while he was temporarily blinded.

"I want to see this. I've wanted to see what was under those tarty pullovers for ages." 

"I had my shirt off at one of our first sessions." Gwaine remembered it well.

"Yeah, but I was afraid to look." Arthur was looking up at him now, his hands reaching for Gwaine's hips, finding him. His eyes didn't looked scared at all, or at least not panicked. He looked like a virgin, like someone who's heart hadn't been broken yet. "Wow you're...well you're well put together. I'd pick you for my side definitely."

And there was Arthur's boyish grin again. Gwaine closed his eyes against the sincerity of it. He was glad he'd had Elena's voice in his head earlier, when he'd made sure to say those words about how they weren't in a relationship. Putting up the stop sign wasn't usually Gwaine's thing. It wasn't Gwaine's thing now.

"Touch me wherever you like, Arthur." He felt Arthur's hands, softer than a man's hands usually were, roaming over his chest, making him shiver. He leaned back so that Arthur's hand was flat on his stomach and there was nothing to hide Arthur's thick red erection. Or his, though Arthur was probably used to seeing him hard in his trousers by now.

When he got back up, Arthur was staring at him, blushing and panting, but not turning away.

"You ready?" Gwaine was already reaching his hand around the base of Arthur's cock. "You want to get head?"

"That was the hardest thing for me, actually. I found it hard to relax and let it happen or not happen, you know?" Arthur's voice sounded breathy, as if he'd lain backdown, but he was watching Gwaine sliding back. "And don't call me on that pun."

"I'm not thinking about word play." Gwaine flexed his hand around the girth of Arthur; it was a nice handful. "Thinking of how good you'll taste and how much I like to suck cock, to be honest."

"What if it's hard for me to tell you what I like?" 

"Put your hands on my head, boss me around a little. I'm sure you won't find that difficult. Oh but some people don't like it," Gwaine thought to add, before leaning over and letting the length of Arthur into his throat. Almost immediately Arthur threaded his hands through his hair and Gwaine smiled over his mouthful. Arthur was a cocky bastard at heart, wasn't he?

He didn't let him come. That was the first concession in 10 minutes to the billable hour. Arthur was piping like a lot of little kettles and thrusting into Gwaine's mouth and saying a truly flattering number of the more obscure bad words, but Gwaine held back.

"You want to finish like this or do you want me inside of you?"

This was the moment. Would Arthur be swept along in lust or too nervous to continue? He looked a wreck. He was sweaty and blotchy. His body flush had left parts of him red and left the rest still white. On someone as groomed as Arthur was, the effect was striking. Gwaine found he wanted to here the sound effects to go with it.

"I'm all clean like we talked about."

"Cool." Careful not to show his surprise, Gwaine inched out of his jeans, winking as Arthur raised his brow at him when it became clear he wasn't wearing pants. He fetched the lube and the condoms out of the drawer.

"Christ, Gwaine, I didn't know that came in such a large size. The lube I mean."

Gwaine chose to ignore the pun this time as well. If it had been Elena or one of his usual lovers he probably would have waggled his dick and taken the laugh.

"I go through a lot of it." Gwaine opened the lid of the admittedly large tub of lube with a practiced hand. "You'll forget all about it when you see what color the condom is." Gwaine waved the packet at him.

"Purple. You're going to impale me with a purple cock."

"Only if you want it." Gwaine scanned ARthur's face. He didn't look worried.

Arthur still didn't look upset when Gwaine picked up his knee. His eyes followed Gwaine's gamely as he ran his slick fingers over Arthur's cock and then, gently traced his taint and other places people were taught to despise.

"Go ahead and look at what I'm doing.

"You like that."

"Yeah, I do. I like finding these places that can give a lot of pleasure. And I like the drama of it, I guess you'd call it, coming to the no-go zones, wondering if my partner is going to lift the gate and let me in."

Gwaine had wondered if Arthur would twist and resist as he called it, a common ticklish response, especially in people who associated sex with pain, but Arthur continued to follow Gwaine's fingers with his eyes as they dipped in the jar and circled around his thighs, his bollocks, his cock, and finally zeroing in again on the exposed pink furl of him.

He pushed in and there was only a small wince. Arthur opened his eyes and nodded. Gwaine added another finger and this time there was only a whispered exhalation. Arthur had let him in the third or fourth gate already. Who knew what Arthur might let him see today?

He had intended to narrate some of it, explain why some people liked to have their balls stroked first, or why it might be a good idea to get in a quick lick to the nipples or prick half way, but it was all forgotten the first time he stretched his fingers apart inside Arthur while sucking gently at his cockhead. Arthur had bellowed and Gwaine's instinct to press an advantage had swamped everything else, as he sucked like a demon. 

"You want to come now." By now Gwaine was just teasing, professional tour guide be damned. He had no intention of staying at this stage no matter how much Arthur said yes. He'd only stop if he heard no. "I want to be in you, though. Can you do it?" 

Gwaine knew Arthur, knew he'd narrow his eyes and spread his legs more in response to a challenge. He rolled the condom on and pulled and kissed Arthur's thighs, digging his knuckles into Arthur's perineum hard with an instinct that rarely failed him.

"Do it, Gwaine. It's good."

Gwaine liked having the heaviness on his shoulders, like feeling Arthur altnerate between giving into the push and fighting back to claw at Gwaine's shoulders and kiss him. It had been a long time since he had explored someone's limits like this, especially someone like Arthur, who hid strength behind the walls.

"Yeah. that's right, Arthur. Come for me."

He watched Arthur's face raptly, happy when the lids fluttered closed again, the way they had all those weeks ago the first time he'd want him so much. 

That face was what he had come to for weeks after that session. And he thought he'd forgotten about it. Fuck. The reality was not the dissapointment he'd thought. It felt wonderful. Gwaine's hands found Arthur's of their own accord and then he was awash in his own pleasure. By the time he had finished pounding into Arthur's body they were stuck together with sweat and there was no longer any difference between what they were doing in the office and Gwaine's most recent fantasy.

He pulled out and let go. He could hear Arthur chuckle at the awkwardness of it. He chuckled, back, pleased and proud and not a little tired.

"We did good, Arthur. Don't you think?"

There was silence but no stiffening from the body next to him. "Arthur?"

Gwaine inspected Arthur. He was staring at the ceiling his legs akimbo, one arm over his eye, the other hanging off the side of the bed.

"I just got fucked."

"Yeah. How'd you like it?"

"Huh." Arthur looked down at himself. "It's ....uh messy, but good. It was good. Does this mean I'm cured?"

Cured. The word reminded Gwaint that he had had a specific therapeutic plan. Jesus on a unicycle. Gwaine had forgotten to pretend to be the guy from the club. 

He stood up and snapped the purple condom off.

"You're getting there. Let's see if you'll let me help you clean off. Don't worry. I won't lick it."

"People do that?"

Gwaine laughed and looked over at the cupboard and the sink, thinking of what would be the best way to help Arthur get clean for the transition back to clothed businessman. He optedfor the matching purple flannel he kept for these occasions, because sometimes a bit of humor was better than the convenience of a sanitary wipe.

"Here I can do that." Arthur started to grab it and Gwaine resisted. He found he didn't want to let go of vertical Arthur, vulnerable Arthur, messy Arthur just yet.

"Let me do it."

"Ok." Arthur blushed but didn't stop the sloppy grin escaping. Gwaine shook his head free of the image. It was tempting to slip back into the smug feeling right there with Arthur, because they were good. They had performed literal fucking miracles. Sex could be transformative just like he'd always said. Only the certain knowledge that that attitude, unchecked would lead to him showing up at Arthur's flat with a rainbow of condoms, stopped him from smiling back. This was a transition for him too; he was close to his goal. It would not do to bollocks it up and he had a little. He'd forgotten that Arthur was a client there for more than half of it.

"So do you think you might want to pursue this guy from the club, then? Now that you know you can handle where things might go?"

Arthur's joy tarnished over and he looked down as he got his undershirt on, hiding his face. Gwaine tried not to mind.

"Oh I don't think that's going to go anywhere."

Arthur was dressed now, mostly. In his white pants he'd looked awkward and younger than he was. In an undershirt and suit trousers he looked older. He reminded Gwaine of other guys in suits he had slept with, men he used to take into the large well appointed toilets of good restaurants, who were surprised to find themselves undressed like that afterwards, just hearing the music from the dining room again. He'd loved that back when. BE before Elena.

"Why not. You like him don't you?"

There was a pause. Arthur bit his lip and looked into the distance.

"Shit. Yeah. I guess I do. I didn't realize. But he doesn't like me, I'm pretty sure."

"What makes you say that?"

"He blamed me for spilling his drink and then he called me a pushy prat."

Arthur paused from tying his shoes to look outraged. 

"Arthur," Gwaine had to point out, " you are a pushy prat." Arthur merely grunted in response. "Anyway, if you got his back up that's a sign that there's something between you, don't you think?"

Arthur's eyes seemed to change shape with his mood, Gwaine had noticed. Now they narrowed only at the corners.

"In my experience, when I get people's back up, it's because they don't like something I've said. Generally they are also discovering that they don't like me."

"Ah, but you've always refused to flirt before. I have an unerring instinct for these things," Gwaine added, before Arthur could object, "and I think you began a flirtation. I think you should go back to this club and try to see where it goes."


	19. What are Friends For?

Gwaine had a hatstand in his office, the kind of thing some clients used religiously to drape their coats on and others ignored. He kept his own coat there, a respectable chesterfield, when he wore one. Now all the clients had taken their things and gone and only Gwaine's coat was hanging there.

Gwaine eyed the thing dubiously. It was a warm evening, warmer than the morning had been. he didn't need his coat and he wasn't going to drag it about. He had a jumper somewhere, hadn't he? He rummaged in a drawer till he found a beloved tatty fisherman's gurnsey from Uni days; it had developed some holes but wasn't any the less warm for that.

Gwaine chose the long way through the park to get to home, giving himself some time to think. Things had gotten a bit hairy with Arthur lately. It wasn't going badly-not at all. It was just a little too much fun. Elena's warning rang in his ears, "and not get into a relationship with a client" Well he wouldn't be tempted if she were willing to step out with him occasionally.

He wished he could tell Merlin about it. He knew he could get a good laugh out of today, how he was dancing around with a purple condom on trying to give Arthur a very nice first time, while at the same time trying not to enjoy it too much. He laughed imagining the send up of it.

"Yes, Arthur, Yes! I mean no. No, not you. You're brilliant, In fact keep doing that. Yes. No. Hold on a minute will you? I'm trying to modulate my orgasm."

Of course, he didn't discuss his clients with anyone, not even his best friend. Well, he'd spoken in general terms to Elena, but that was different. She was a professional and in any case, she brought out the best in him, while Merlin was the one he'd done the worst, to, wasn't he? More than the ethics of it, he didn't want to rub that in.

Gwaine stopped as if he'd run out of fuel and in a way he had. His animal good spirits, which fed on instinct and never wasted themselves on a lie, choked on this one.

He wasn't refusing to talk to Merlin to protect Arthur. He didn't open up to Elena because she was a professional. And it wasn't a precious sensitivity to Merlin's feelings that kept him so quiet, at least not only that. He trusted Elena because she didn't trust him. And Merlin had always been too easy to impress. Gwaine had wanted to keep this new side of himself away from all their easy, lazy ways together. It was comfortable the way it was now and there was always the chance that he could take Merlin back, if he wanted to, if he needed him, right? Because Gwaine was just easy and it didn't mean anything and Merlin would always be around. If he admitted to Merlin how hard he was trying, he would be on the hook for everything: Why didn't you try this hard for me?

No wonder they'd been growing apart lately. He was shutting his friend, his brother, out of what for the first time really mattered to him, trying to hold him in place like a back up plan. Elena would get the best of him and Merlin was in reserve for when that failed. What shit, what utter shit. 

Inevitably, as Gwaine had this epiphany, at the corner of a rubbish bin and a herd of new daffodils, it started to rain. He hurried towards the white blur of his building.

 

Gwaine shook himself like a dog, walking into the flat spraying little droplets everywhere, right onto Merlin who had opened the door for him, covered with the marks of his new trade as usual.

"Merlin!" It was a relief to see the smile was still there for him. "Look I've got to talk to you about something."

"Watch it there!" Merlin stepped back and made the sign of the cross, "ever heard of an umbrella, Gwaine?"

"Covered with flour as you are, I wouldn't make a fuss over a little water."

"Don't you know flour and water make glue?". Merlin looked behind him. "Gwen, can you put the kettle on? Gwaine's left his brolly again!" 

"Got it!" the sound of a muffled voice from the kitchen was followed almost instantly by the sound of rushing water. 

"So what do you want to talk to me about that can't wait?" Merlin's frown was undercut by his hands which were untucking Gwaine's hair and squeezing the water out on the mat. "We really need to have towels by the door."

"Gwen's here?" Gwaine tried not to sound disappointed. He would have liked to get the whole thing out with Merlin while he still had the momentum of it, when the right words were more likely to come."

Merlin just shrugged in response.

"Sounds like she knows her way around the flat."

Merlin looked down at his trainers, once black, now gray, as if he were ashamed of himself..

"We've started cooking over here more, this week. Gwen's had to move out of her place, so I'm afraid we're working over here more often than not."

He hadn't meant to accuse anyone. Merlin had to know Gwaine wouldn't be reproach him like that. "It's fine. I'm glad I get to clap eyes on her to be honest. I was beginning to think you'd dreamt the girl up, knowing how your imagination runs away with you."

"Shut it, Gwaine." Merlin found his grin again. "Anyway, I figured it was time you met. Don't go into the kitchen just yet." Gwaine had been about to run in there to introduce himself. "It's just one massive disaster."

Did Merlin seem a little hesitant as they sat on the sofa to wait? If he weren't 100% positive that Merlin was gay he would have guessed he had walked in on a new relationship.

The feeling continued, as he found himself crowded with Merlin and his friend around the coffee table, drinking tea and putting the mugs down on those Blaue Reiter coasters that Merlin had picked up at the BM. Gwaine hated them a little, didn't like putting his mug on a little square, liked putting it on a little square painting even less. 

Sensitized as he was now, to the strain between him and Merlin, he noticed everything the man didn't say and became more silent himself. The girl, Gwen made a lot of conversation at first to compensate, giggling and starting in on stories that Merlin finished, only to look back at Gwaine afterward, as if asking permission. Finally, Gwaine couldn't take it anymore.

"So you two are making a go of it with the his catering do,I gather, and not just rolling around in the flour?"

Since when did he make small talk with Merlin? Since when did he lean over his lap to pour tea on a place that was clearly designed for his feet?

"Well there have been a number of food fights to be honest." They all laughed. Seeing Merlin's eyes disappear as he did, relaxed Gwaine a notch. Nothing was irrevocable. They had time to talk. They lived together, after all.

"Flour, of course," Gwen said.

"And whipped cream," Merlin added.

"And that time with the Nutella."

"And you didn't invite me? I'm offended," Gwaine couldn't help but say. Merlin pretended to smack his head, but Gwen blushed and looked down so her ringlets touched her chin, letting Gwaine sneak in a good look at her. She was little and curvy, really a smashing girl. And somehow despite her profession she had a tiny waist.

"Oh thank God I was going to take your temperature in a minute." Merlin put his cup down so he could pretend to wipe his brow in relief.

"And what are you nattering on about now,". Gwaine narrowed his eyes at Merlin, noticing the color in his cheeks, the clear if somewhat shifty eyes. He was well. Good then.

"You finally leered. I've never seen you go that long meeting someone new without leering at them. I was beginning to get worried."

"Well maybe you've turned over a new leaf." Gwen offered brightly. Gwaine could see why she and Merlin made a good team, as she was turning his piss to wine like that. 

"Maybe you've set me back a little." Gwaine waggled his brows at her, though he gave Merlin a mean little pinch under the table. "I might have to go to confession again after picturing you two covered up in Nutella."

"Like chocolate, do you?" Gwen handed him a plate. It had the little school boy biscuits on it, his old favorite. Where had those come from? He hadn't bought them and Merlin only stretched his budget to buy GWaine's favorite when he had something to confess.

"Hold on now." Gwaine wiped his mouth and stood up. "The two of you are buttering me up about something and I'm not about to hear bad news with my tea like somebody's Auntie". The two of them were like two cats, bumping butts and scaring each other. They'd probably broken something like his Granny's Jubilee china. NO Merlin knew he wouldn't care about that. It would be about Gwen. She'd just lost her flat, hadn't she. And she'd be looking to crash at their place. That was more likely. "You," he pointed to Merlin, "are standing me a pint and we're talking this over like men. No offense, Gwen." His own confession would have to wait.

"None taken. As long as I get a pint, too." She smiled shyly and turned on at least 2 sets of dimples. "You know I like you. I couldn't figure out from Merlin 's description how I was going to ...I mean." It was painful to listen to her.

"For Christ's sake, Merlin, change it to whiskey and double for the girl, she's like to swallow her own tongue."

"Thanks." There was real gratitude in Gwen's smile. He nodded his head. Gwen was alright. Ran a tight ship under the flakey exterior, he'd be willing to bet.

Gwaine wondered if she reminded him of Elena. She had the innocent energy about her, that way of being not at all judgmental. Of course Elena was a bit judgmental, on certain topics at least. 

Christ he was envious, truth to tell. Gwen had started a business with Merlin at the drop of a hat. Why couldn't he have fallen in love with someone who would reach through the muck of you and believe like Gwen had? He wondered if Arthur would like her. He decided, that he would, very much. With a girl like that he probably wouldn't even need a sex therapist. She could do it at his place with him, using home videos. Now there was a thought. 

Gwaine found the mood much improved after 10 minutes at their local. Gwen's curls had relaxed a little further down her back in the warmth of the pubroom and Merlin was reciting from memory most of the parts of their primary school Punch and Judy show. When he tried to raise up a foot to play the head master, Gwaine squeezed the toe.

"Alright then, no more for you on a week night. Don't want you mixing up the salt and sugar or what have you back at home. What is you're trying to avoid telling me?"

Gwen and Merlin exchanged glances. Gwaine crossed his arms over his chest.

"Right. See you're not going to have to worry about us mixing up your sugar and what not." Seeing Gwaine's brow go up, Merlin hastened to add, "not that you mind. I know I've done a fair amount of baking already and you haven'tminded. No one is as good to a friend that way as you, Gwaine."

"Who doesn't like cake?," Gwaine said. "Anyway, I'm not doing any favors. I like having you around for some reason. Probably a barmy gene from the Irish side." He kept his tone light. Inside his heart lurched a bit.

"Well, yes, but even you have your limits," Merlin exchanged another look with Gwen, this time with matching bitten lips. "I mean. Shit. What I mean is I don't want to impose on your kindness too far, your tolerance, whatever. Living with someone is different from running a business from out of their flat. I really don't feel comfortable doing that to a friend of mine." He paused for breath. "So I'm going to find a place with Gwen."

Oh. The news was wholly unexpected and completely unsurprising. Gwaine never thought he owned Merlin just because he housed him in his flat. He hadn't rejoiced in his weakness, in wringing the vomit out of his bedding. He'd always hoped Merlin would climb up out of there. He'd just thought they'd have more time together. Merlin had come to his senses sooner than that. So.

Maybe it was too late to restart their friendship where they left off. They weren't going to live together like family anymore.

The sadness that Gwaine had once known well, before he learned how to outrun it on his bycicle, the one that had been displaced like a superfluous guest the first time Merlin came up to him with his lunch tray and claimed the seat next to his, was back. Gwaine had been waiting for it for a long time, since the day Merlin found him with that guy, Stewart, really .

"But that's good news," he said. You must be making some gelt then?"

"Yeah," Merlin looked at him with those damn bright eyes and Gwaine saw his dear face go a bit blurry. He blinked.

"Hey now!" Merlin hopped off his seat so fast his stool fell over. "Oops." He looked around frantically and patted his person. "Where's my mobile? Have I lost it again? Gwen could you dial the number?"

"It's on the bar," Gwaine told him, "you silly ass."

"Brilliant." Merlin picked the thing up and started punching at it. "Because we're ringing Mum with the news." He smiled up at Gwaine like his earnest expression could keep him there. Well usually it could.

"Maybe later," Gwaine rose, reached for his jacket and remembered that he had left it the office. "I've got to go back and fetch my coat," he said. "See you at the flat. 'We'll have a party, yeah?"

"Can't wait to get rid of me?" Merlin looked a little forlorn, holding his Mobil up like he'd forgotten about it.

"Nah, I just figure helping you pack is my best chance of finding all my clothes I'm missing, like that Cashmere piece I lent you three years ago that I haven't seen since."

"Oh but I've seen that one!" Gwen ignored Merlin's cries of "Traitor," "It's red isn't it? That's the one he goes out to meet men in!"

"You've been meeting people?" Gwaine pulled out his stool and sat back down, raising an accusatory brow at Merlin. "You've been meeting men in my lucky jumper?" This he had to hear. This was not a conversation that could be had quietly, in dribs and drabs over the kitchen counter or during the adverts on t.v. It wasn't going to sew them back up together as tight as a few stitches at a time, but it was something GWaine should know about. "You haven't told me about it." 

Merlin shrugged and Gwen answered for him.

"Well not meeting people, exactly. He's been getting out, the last couple weeks." That Gwaine did know. They hadn't talked about it, since one or the other of them always seemed to be asleep these days. "And he's got some admirers." She giggled. Merlin crossed his arms and glared at her. Gwaine was glad to see that he didn't hesitate at opening the information up to Gwaine

"That blonde guy is not an admirer. He's a prat. I keep telling you." 

"Well, he's not the only one. There have been a lot of cute blokes besides him." Gwen looked at Gwaine like a coconsipriator. "but the others all give up when Merlin won't dance."

"I did dance with that one guy, Terrence something."

"Timothy."

"Timothy, right. And that same bone headed bastard cut in. He actually said, "May I have this dance? I mean who does that?"

"I think he likes you and he's just awkward. It's kind of cute, actually."

"No." Merlin burped and pointed his finger at Gwaine who made a mental note to cut him off after this pint. "Back me up on this, Gwaine. All he wanted to talk about was how I got the wrong impression of him the first time we talked because he spilled my drink like a total arsewipe and wouldn't apologize. It's all about him, isn't it? He's just a narcissist, or an obsessive type or something, right Gwaine? You're the shrink. What do you think?"

Gwaine considered. He tried to imagine Merlin, who had been so depressed after losing his lover that he couldn't even leave the house, trying to fend off this masher at the club. He could just picture the guy, probably an arsehole in IT, some cretin who thought he was hot because he went up two shirt sizes taking steroids he'd hustled on the internet. He imagined the guy blowing beery breath into Merlin's face and mistaking Merlin's diffidence for consent.

"I don't like the sound of it to be honest. Do you see him even when you say you're not interested in talking?"

"He's everywhere! Always lingering about the loo, winking at me and talking about chemistry."

"And does he change venues with you? Do you get the feeling he's following you?"

"Yes, Oh my God, yes. I didn't make the connection, but I've seen him at more than one place."

"That's it." Gwaine hauled Merlin up. "Next time you go out, I'm coming with you."

"Maybe you'll meet someone you like, too," Gwen suggested.

"Oh Gwaine likes everybody," Merlin said with drunken certainty.

"Actually, I'm spoken for now," Gwaine said. Merlin nodded. 

"Do you mean that Elena girl? I though you never saw her."

"Yeah." Gwaine looked away. He didn't say anything else.


	20. Arthur Asks for What He Wants

Arthur wanted to get something for Gwaine. He generally let Morgana do his shopping for him, but he didn't want to let this be one of those gifts, another exquisitely wrapped thing that was as much a mystery to him as the recipient, accompanied by a card that she wrote and he signed. 

He was thinking something more along the lines of a tacky ornament, anyway, and Morgana would not think a gag gift was the way to say thank you to this worker of miracles. But Arthur was grateful and thought that Gwaine would appreciate this more off hand way of saying so.

Arthur was enjoying a flirtation. With a man. It was astounding. He didn't even feel stupid thinking about it. He frowned, remembering the conversation he'd had with Merlin on the line for the toilet. He'd said something about how lemony it smelled and was it maybe Merlin's aftershave and Merlin had said it was probably the air freshener as that was often lemony and did he often tell people they smelled like the loo because it couldn't be making him popular and then the door had closed between them and Arthur had lost track of him for the night.

Well maybe he did feel a little stupid. Actually, stupid was one of the words that Merlin had thrown at him another time they'd met, the time they'd actually talked about politics. And whatever Arthur's faults, no one had ever said he was stupid before, exactly. Merlin had looked gorgeous when he said it, his eyes narrowing isn't slits and then widening as he grinned at Arthur's expense. At the time, he'd been too busy admiring the animation on that face to pay attention to the imprecations being hurled his way. Possibly the tenor of communication hadn't gone especially well, after all, He'd have to ask Gwaine about it. 

Arthur gave a little hop onto the street. The spring was getting into his bones the way it hadn't done since he was just a boy. A car came at him and he then stepped smartly up again. It wasn't exactly quiet on Essex street but Time Out had promised him he could find used housewares there and he was looking forward to a good poke around at silly seventies accoutrements that might appeal to a guy who liked purple latex.

He realized he was looking forward to something else's that wasn't just the spring getting to him. His skin felt prickly, but in a good way. His heart was beating a little louder than usual.

Arthur stopped suddenly, causing an irritated clucking from the flock of persons around him. He hardly noticed, though he hated people who blocked traffic like that, as a rule. Good Lord, he said to himself, I am looking forward to fucking Gwaine.

* * *

"So I come bearing gifts!" Arthur placed his bag on the counter, right over the drawer where GWaine kept all of his condoms; his eye lingered there a minute.

"Should I be worried?" Gwaine poked it with a finger. 

"Probably. I'm afraid all this therapy has awoken my facetious side. The thing is hideous."

Gwaine pulled up the lava lamp. It was a true masterpiece of its kind, containing not just the usual orange blobs but also a number of green and purple ones.

"You know I like it. It will look an absolute treat lurking behind the dwarf hydraneas. Can't have it too tasteful around here. People might get the wrong idea." He gave Arthur a longer look than usual. "So what's the occasion?"

"Just wanted to say thank you." Arthur shrugged, felt his overcoat pull on his shoulders and took it off, tossing it on the chair behind him.

"Thank you for what exactly?"

"For this." Arthur strode forward and plucked the lamp out of Gwaine's hands and placed it back on the counter. He pulled his hands up under Gwaine's ridiculous long hair and kissed him, licking and sucking the way he'd practiced on his pillow when he thought about lovers at night. Gwaine kissed back as he'd known he would, tightening his arms around Arthur in that way that made his waist feel trim. It made noise. Arthur didn't care. In fact he liked it.

"Wow! You're welcome. So is this a bit of a goodbye present, like you might be done with therapy?"

"Well, it' s all in the card." 

"You wrote a testimonial?" Gwaine went still for a minute.

"Yes, is that a problem?" Arthur had seen a lot of cards like this in Gwaine's office. It was how he'd thought of it. "Anyway, I'm afraid I'm still a bit dunder headed around M...around guys, so it's not a farewell yet."

"Stay as long as you need, mate." Gwaine sounded a little subdued, Arthur thought. It was a strange thought since Gwaine had never been anything but tooth jarringly chipper before.

"Are you alright?"

"Yeah, just surprised. You're very forward today."

Arthur smirked. "I'll be honest with you. I'm getting very frustrated. I really like this guy we talked about but I don't think he's anywhere near ready to kiss me yet."

"So you're going to be kissing someone else?"

"Yes," Arthur remembered Gwaine thrusting inside him, the hair tickling his back, the clever hand on his prick. The sensation had marinated over time, becoming more intense as he entrusted it to his memories. "You," he said. "I want to fuck you this time."

GWaine didn't react at first. A sigh seemed to ripple through him.

"Yeah, alright, let's do this." He put his hands to his shirt but Arthur interrupted the motion and replaced Gwaine's hands with his.

"I want to get this off of you myself." He gripped his hands down Gwaine's sides, outlining the narrow chest. He pressed hard and Gwaine grunted.

"Christ."

Arthur slipped one hand around Gwaine's pectoral. He didn't know if you were allowed to squeeze a man there, like a girl's breast, but he decided to do it anyway. He threaded the nipple between the base of two fingers, watching to see if Gwaine would like it. He moaned and tilted his chin up.

"I really like that about you. It's so easy to please you. It takes the pressure off."

Arthur moved some of Gwaine's hair off of his face. He was struck by how silent he was willing to be as Arthur looked into his eyes. Wasn't there usually some kind of banter going on when they did these things?

"I'm going to make you smile and then I'm going to make you come." Arthur wasn't sure where he'd gotten the confidence to say such a shameless thing. He supposed it was just a matter of being the same way in this room with Gwaine and with his body as he was in the rest of his life. "You're going to have to help me with these ridiculous tight jeans, though. He stood back and watched Gwaine take them off.

He took his time about it. The chain moved back and forth on his bare chest as he unbuttoned the flies and leaned forward to take it all off. His cuff slipped easily over his bare heels. Now, Arthur understood why the man didn't wear shoes.

Gwaine was standing in just a pair of lime green pants, skimpy ones, less than briefs. Even now Arthur thought he would feel like an idiot standing there, but Gwaine seemed to relax under his gaze. He directed it to the front of him with one long, brown hand, pulling up on the swelling prick there with the heel of it. His breathing had quickened and his eyelids fallen. He had a lazy smile Arthur had never seen before.

He turned around and braced his hands against the counter. He spread his legs and looked over his shoulder at Arthur.

"Well come on now. Take them off."

Arthur's hands had never felt so big as they smoothed over the lines of Gwaine's back. He couldn't resist kissing the same place as last time, in the scented juncture of his shoulder and neck, but then couldn't bear to miss sliding down to the cotton. He pushed it down and fell with the movement onto his knees. Lifting up each of Gwaine's feet in turn, he waited for a joke to break in and didn't hear one; he threw the pants to the side and Gwaine was naked.

He paused there, aware that he was shaking. It was not nerves this time; it was lust. He placed his hands on the narrowest part of Gwaine's hips, gripping with his full strength. His nose and mouth took turns nuzzling the swelling of his arse, where the skin was soft from being hidden. He let his tongue lick the round of it and then he sucked. Almost nothing in his life had ever felt as good as letting himself squeeze and suck this firm flesh. He kept waiting to feel wrong, but nothing spoke back from the part of him that housed those voices. Gwaine groaned and he heard himself grunt behind his full mouth.

The drawer open and closed above him. It looked like Gwaine had fetched out the lube and condoms.

"Let's get on the bed. I want to watch you suck me like that for a good long while."

"It's minty,". Arthur loved having his mouth full of Gwaine's cock. It was the first time but if felt familiar, like something he'd known a long time ago and forgotten about till this delightful rediscovery, except for the taste.

"Sorry love,". Gwaine's sharp toothed smile was a little more like the one he knew. "I wish that wide mouth of yours were right on me, but It's safe sex chez Gwaine." He pushed his hand down on Arthur's head. "Just a little harder and faster. I know you're a greedy one. Aren't you."

Arthur was, in fact, a very greedy and very naughty man, yes. He let his lips grow tired just so he could suck harder and take in more of his mouthful of cock. That ache mixed with the pull and push of Gwaine's hands in his hair. He loved it. 

Arthur let out a cackle of triumph as Gwaine's hips began to push forward.

"Yes!" He popped up and smiled into Gwaine's smile, their teeth clacking together. "Knew I could make you come."

"I haven't come yet. You cheeky bastard." Arthur laughed. 

"I know. I want to get in your arse. He slapped a hand down on Gwaine's rump. The ringing sound of it surprised him. "Oh. That wasn't too hard, was it?"

Gwaine shook his head. Something seemed to shift in him. His eyes opened wider and he turned onto his elbows.

"Get in me. Get something in me. I know you can do it now, Arthur."

Arthur looked down at the man in front of him. He was hairy in places where women were not hairy, but that wasn't what was so different. He was just...well more Gwaineish than other people.

"You're not going to hurt me, are you? Go ahead."

But Arthur was already reaching for the lube.

* * *

When Gwaine tried to rest feet on his shoulders, Arthur laughed

"You know it's funny. It used to drive me spare that you wouldn't put any shoes on, but now I kind of like it."

He picked up the foot; it was a long bony thing. He explored the rough and soft textures of it with his teeth. Then he sucked the big toe into his mouth.

"Oh yes,". Gwaine lolled his head back, grinning and grimacing. "Thought you'd be too squeamish to do my feet. Suck the other one." Arthur obliged, not even suppressing a grin of triumph because he wasn't feeling squeamish about anything right now, nothing at all. The he placed both feet carefully on his shoulders. The weight felt good. He tucked Gwaine's surprisingly delicate thighs under his arms. He lined himself up and rolled his hips slowly, waiting for Gwaine's face to tell him when it was good.

"You're sweaty. Here." Arthur dragged the lock of Gwaine's hair out of his eyes again. "I keep having to do this."

Gwaine reached up and pushed at Arthur's fringe. "You too; you're covering those lovely eyes of yours." He barely made it before collapsing down. Gwaine always had to even everything up like that, silly man.

"You just sit back and enjoy it." He looked his body over Gwaine's and pressed in and in. If had had wanted to pull out,he couldn't have because Gwaine's heels soon pressed into his back and Gwaine's mouth pulled him forward, hissing and sighing out obscene words under the press of Arthur's mouth.

"It's so good not to have to stop," Gwaine said at some point. Arthur agreed, the swell of pleasure rolling through him didn't seem to come from his cock alone but to be the sum of all the little places they usually paused and reconsidered, but this time didn't. He could feel himself go faster, hear Gwaine's cries of frustration as his legs lost their hold.

"Here. Turn over." Sure as a man launching into the scrum, Arthur reared back and turned Gwaine over. He stuff a pillow under as he did it, remembering what Gwaine had said about it without even trying. He hardly used the thing, though, pulling up hard on Gwaine's hips, kneeling and thrusting at once, until Gwaine growled and shifted to his hands and knees.

"Toss me off, come on, you can do it." Eager to obey, Arthur reached forward and grabbed Gwaine's cock in a slick hand. He grunted and pulled his hand over Arthur's, so that they were stroking together, more and more rhythmically. Arthur's hips, too were pressing in time, but it was no longer enough. With a cry of frustration, he knocked Gwaine's hand off and continued everything thing harder and faster to the dictates of his own need to come.

Arthur had never understood how this could work. The whole thing must have collapsed. He supposed it did. His hips seemed to be driving them both into the sheets and his sweaty hands, once more circled around the flesh of Gwaine's prick, seemed to be wringing out his own pleasure through someone else's nerves until they were crying out to each other's noise like gulls

"Yes like that!" Gwaine said. "Ah that's good."

At the last it was his own hand after all, flying fast and both of Arthur's hands were gripping his hips and both of his eyes were watching his cock and Gwaine's, which wasn't impossible at all; nothing was. It was perfect.

After, they collapsed together, only gradually releasing one limb at a time from the tangle as it became necessary. First Arthur's wrist had to come out. Then Gwaine's shoulder and finally Arthur's prick, limp and sheathed, and smelly and purple.

He pulled Gwaine to him and laughed in his hair.

"God my penis looks a fright in this thing." He snapped the thing off and aimed at the little bin, which was, he couldn't help but notice, in easy reach of the bed.

Gwaine turned around and traced his nose with a finger.

"You liked it though."

Arthur nodded. He could feel the heat in his chest and his cheeks, feel the grin on his face.

"You look triumphant, you great prat. I knew you would."

"Ah, shut up."

Gwaine looked like he meant to say something, but only his eyes made it out of Arthur's arms, looking at his jeans where he'd tossed them on the chair, on top of Arthur's overcoat.

"Do you have to go?" Arthur spoke the words into the crook of Gwaine's neck. He mouthed kisses after them as if words and kisses were just the same thing, which maybe with Gwaine now they were.

"MMM. No appointments for an hour." Gwaine sighed but it wasn't restful. "We should get up though."

He sat up with a strength Arthur had sort of forgotten he had. It wasn't what Arthur wanted. He wanted just a little more time like this. Arthur put his hand on the crook of his elbow.

"Gwaine."

"Yes, Arthur?" Gwaine looked a little grim, Arthur thought. It was odd because Arthur had never felt so relaxed, as if they had somehow changed places in a role play.

"This was good. I don't see..." He heaved himself up and caught up with Gwaine's eyes where they were once again showing an unprecedented interest in his clothes. "I don't see why we can't do this again when we're not in a professional relationship. I liked this. I like you a lot. And I got the impression you liked me, too."

Arthur held his breath. He hadn't meant to say anything of the kind to Gwaine, but that was before they had shared what felt like completely new levels of intimacy.

Gwaine placed his head in his hands. Arthur felt his body reheat with a larger, harsher blush.

"Oh, I'm sorry. Christ. How stupid of me. Of course, it was just part of the plan."

Gwaine put his hand on Arthur's. 

"I think you know you don't have to apologize in this room."

"Yes, right, of course."

Arthur snapped up and began reassembling his clothes. Gwaine dressed more slowly. He was still finished before Arthur had even tied his shoes, because he wore so much less.

"I have to thank you for the lava lamp. It's not everyone who knows how to pick the right gift." Gwaine's smile looked about 12 degrees too twinkly. Arthur found he could not bear to look at him too hard.

"Just don't tell Morgana, the lamp is mine. She'd steal it and replace it with something else."

Gwaine laughed, more genuinely this time.

"Right. The real definition of patient confidentiality." There was a pause. Arthur didn't give Gwaine a chance to say anything.

"So this means I'm cured, doesn't it?" Arthur had envisioned some sense of accomplishment when he said those words the last time. Now he felt sad and embarrassed in a way he did not associate with Gwaine.

"I believe you are, Arthur. I believe you are."

Gwaine didn't say so, but Arthur knew it was time for him to leave.

* * *

Gwaine waited until he heard the outer door shut, before he stopped holding his breath. He leant over the counter taking full lungful a of air and breathing them out again. He hadn't expected that, hadn't known he would react like that.

Arthur had been how he'd imagined him. The boyish grin was as joyful and surprised at itself as he had imagined in every fantasy; the manicured hands surprisingly strong. When Arthur had offered himself afterwards, just about every part of Gwaine had perked up for yes.

Gwaine picked up the card Arthur left; it was beige or ecru or something, good heavy stock, but flimsy for all that. It was just a piece of paper and what he'd spent a year trying to achieve. That was why he'd said no. Bizarre that. Gwaine had never thought much of the power in little pieces of paper. You just had to know what you want and how to get it.

And now he had what he wanted, didn't he? He could clean up the mess with Arthur at their next session. What had he said? Arthur was cured? Well, they weren't quite done there, but it was as good as.

He picked up the phone and dialed, his eyes skimming over words in Arthur's testimonial; the light paper looked dark next to Morgana's note, contrasting nicely with the cranberry color she'd chosen as a border. 

"Hello, Elena here,". The sound of Elena's voice brought her before his eyes, bouncy and frowny. He was relieved to feel the same rush of anticipation, he'd felt every time they'd spoken. He had missed her.

"My dear, it's Gwaine,"

"Oh God, really?"

"Yes. Are you surprised?"

"Yes and no. I hadn't heard from you in a while." Did she sound a little disappointed? miffed? "What can I do for you?"

'You can let me take you out for a meal."

"Gwaine. We talked about this. I thought I'd made it clear..." He could just picture her, blowing her hair out of her mouth and starting to stalk about with the phone. She was probably tripping on pillows.

"Yes, you did. And I kept my side of our bargain,so now I'd like to take you out to eat. Tell me , Elena, how do you feel about crow?"

When Gwaine rang off, he had a date. Elena was, of course, the kind of person who kept her word. GWaine wasn't sure if a survey of people would agree on the same thing about him. It depended on whom you asked and right now he knew better than to bring it up. Sometimes you had to be careful not to think too hard.


	21. Rain and Sausages

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gwaine has a date with Elena at last.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> These are the next five chapters as promised. I'm afraid I couldn't quite wrap it all up, so there will be five more.

"This is brunch?" Elena thrust her beer at him, wisely getting it out of the way, while she squirted mustard on her Weisswurst. "A biergarten? Almost a year and you want beer and sausages?"

Gwaine laughed. "I thought you'd like something casual. And I was hoping you'd be impressed. It takes years of study to learn the location of every beer hall in London, you know. It's called "the knowledge" and very few master it."

"You're not as funny as you think you are." He watched her take a bite, holding her hair out of her mouth with one hand. Her eyes widened as she quickly went for a second bite. "Ohh! This is good, better than the brat. Especially with the sauerkraut like you said. You are absolutely forgiven."

"Is that right?" He eyed the sky, which was gathering its forces into a darker, more ominous grey. Perhaps it was time to move this elesewhere."I wasn't sure you were giving me credit for anything." 

She didn't answer that.

There was an atrium at the end of the garden, where it abutted a hotel. It was a private space, meant to provide access to the restaurant for the hotel guests but not the other way around. "You know what, I think we should head inside."

"You'd think one of us would remember an umbrella," she said as they maneuvered through the glass doors, talking a little too loud for the sudden hush of the hotel lobby, "It's not like there's never rain forecast in April."

"I don't like to give in to the forecasters like that, " Gwaine scoffed. "Who are they to dictate what I carry about with me all day? And they're usually off by a day or two anyway."

"I know, right?" Elena's face lit up as if she had been waiting a long time to hear this correct answer. "And I hate having my hands full all the time. Plus if I'm carrying an umbrella and a purse and I put them both down, I always forget my purse when I pick the umbrella up again."

"Would that be a bad thing? Your shoes are hot; your purse on the other hand.."

Elena didn't answer at first. She settled on a banquette in the lobby. From the waist down, she fit right in. She had elegant heels stretched out in front of her and her skirt was correct, with a good line. Above the waist her suit jacket was open and one hand caressed a belly slightly rounder than before the date had begun. Gwaine could hardly take his eyes off of her, rehearsing in his mind what he would be doing if he could kiss his way up that leg and replace that hand with his own. Neither of them spoke for a moment. Rain bounced off the windows over their heads and wasted itself over the sides of the atrium. A number of people looked at them sideways, apparently disliking the top half of Elena and the entirety of Gwaine, who was wearing torn jeans and sandals and was still eating a bratwurst. If Elena cared she didn't let on, saying instead.

"Ooof. I ate that fast. Pass me my bag will you? I don't think reaching over is a good idea right now, but I can't stand these things on my feet another second."

Gwaine handed over the bag; it was her old enemy from the first day they'd met and just as ugly and oversized as ever. Elena reached into its depths. "Now I don't approve of umbrellas, but wellies on the other hand..." She fished around and with a cry of triumph produced a pair of rain boots in a floral print. "These are a person's best friend!" 

Gwaine ate his own sausage in quick, neat bites, watching her change the shoes to the obvious horror of many people around them. The wellies went on no problem, but she struggled for a few minutes, wrestling the pointy shoes back into the bag, and feeling around before extracting a familiar looking pair of letters. Gwaine's heart beat picked up and he forgot about the silent semaphore sniping of the people who wanted them to leave. It was like opening his A level results all over again.

"These were breathtaking." Elena looked at him as few other people had, as if she were watching his face on a screen while the credits rolled over him, telling all he'd done. "I'll be honest with you. I have never seen something like this. I cried when I finished."

She unfolded one of the letters. It was Morgana's, written in a flowing hand with lots of ink. The words, neat and dark enough he could read them from where he sat were marred by the occasional blot where she had pressed too hard.

"I have always prided myself on knowing my own mind," she read, "on doing what I need to do for myself without waiting for someone else to take care of me." Elena's voice wobbled slightly and she took a deep breath. "For a long time I thought using desire to control the men I knew was part of that. I was miserable, frankly but I didn't know how to do anything else. You changed that. The trust you established with me, the absolute acceptance you offered are without doubt what reopened my life. You taught me how to be held."

"You brilliant bastard," Elena's eyes were glistening. She hadn't lied when she'd said she was moved to tears. "I'm so mad I could spit."

"Go ahead. I appreciate a lady who knows how to spit when it's necessary." Gwaine made sure to catch her eyes. She was frowning and smiling at the same time. That was for him. She liked him, she admired him. Many people had enjoyed Gwaine's company, but he didn't think any of them had admired him before. He realized that he was going to remember this moment, the sound of the rain and the greasy, cozy smell of wet wool, for a long time to come .

"Yeah well, I might go years before I finally did that for someone, you know." She sighed. "And then there's this one." She reached for the plainer envelope.

"Arthur." Most of Gwaine's contentment popped. Suddenly the sound of all the other people talking nearby made him feel itchy and self conscious and he had the urge to shout at them to mind their own business.

"Yes. I am not going to read any of this one out loud because it includes the word sex at least 5 times."

Gwaine told himself he was not relieved.

"Well," he said, "getting him to say the word was one of our first goals, so he was bound to show off. I'm afraid he's the over achiever type."

"Yeah, I'm not going to go into the whole thing of what you did for him, Gwaine because frankly, it's making me dizzy." Elena shrugged, " But you won the bet, fair and square. A brother and a sister, obviously they knew each other before and you helped them both. You changed a whole family. It's quite a feat."

"So you're not going to call the Bow Street Runners on me?"

"Nope." She folded the letters and handed him the packet. "It's stopped raining and I see a manager heading this way. How about we go to my office and I show you I know how to honor my side of a deal?"

"The article?" Gwaine looked at her, standing there with her eyes on his and her lips curling up unconsciously, a woman waiting to be kissed. 

"Yes the article." Elena hoisted her bag up and Gwaine dodged with ease this time. "Don't even think I owe you a snog because I know you know better."

"True." Gwaine's smile showed all his teeth. "After you, my lady?"

"Are you looking at my arse?" She narrowed her eyes at him. He shrugged.

"Yes. Do you want me to lead instead? I've heard mine isn't half bad."

"Arggg!" Not many of the people who found Gwaine frustrating actually voiced the expression like that. "I'm leading the way. If you know my address already I really don't want to know about it."

It took a goodish amount of time on the underground to get to Elena's office. Gwaine didn't mind. Elena had pulled out a book as soon as they'd sat down. He taken out the crossword from where he'd folded it in his pocket and they'd enjoyed a companionable silence, swaying gently with the movement of the train. 

"So what are you reading?" He asked. 

"It's about the social history of therapy. I thought I'd better look into it before we met up." She showed him the title, "The Sensuous Psychiatrist" "It turns out there have always been male therapists who sleep with their patients, disciples of Freud, Jung. And plenty of people more recently. Some of them consider it part of the therapy like you do. They call it "acting out physically."

Gwaine grabbed the book and rifled through it. There were a number of stories of marriages that had come out of a therapeutic relationship, but also of women being coerced and humiliated.

"These are just some assholes," he said, thrusting the book back at her. "I know these guys. They all thought they knew more about what their patients wanted than they did. It's bull shit. I would never do that."

"I know," Elena looked up at him without speaking for a moment, "but do you think it's a coincidence that you're a man doing this? Don't you think you feel, I don't know, entitled to provide this kind of service, well because you have a dick? That's crude, but it's exactly what they were thinking. Listen to this. Freud said 'what this lady really needs is a prescription readingRX penis normalis, repetetur."

"I don't think that. I don't think that at all. it's not like a man's penis is a magic wand, is it? Not everybody likes them, even." He leaned forward to speak above the clatter of the train. "That's why what my practice really needs is a woman on board."

"Really?"

Gwaine tried not to be offended by her doubt because they were finally, finally having the conversation he'd tried to start so long ago.

"That's what I told you right from the start. I told you I wanted you to be my partner in the practice and that's what I meant."

Elena looked up at him, her book limp in her hand.

"Oh my God,".

He closed the book up for her.

"It's alright, you know. It's not like you have to say yes." But internally he had just refigured the odds in his favor.

Elena was still preoccupied when they got to her office. He glanced around, looking for something to praise. It was mostly a series of narrow halls that led to a small room with one good window. 

"I know it's not the flashy tower you work out of." She waved her hand at the sofa. "Still there's room for two people to sit at once, which is more than you offer."

"Guilty as charged." He crossed one ankle over the other and watched her face. Her color was high; it was quite obvious in someone so fair that she was emotionally charged. In the therapists seat, she looked more in control. Was she more angry than flustered? 

"Tell me what you're thinking. Please."

She looked away, at first. "I don't mean to insult you. Well I mean I would have meant it, before the letters." She took a deep breath, the kind practiced in weekend seminars on panic attacks. But she wasn't panicking. She was preparing to take a risk, just as he knew she would, brave lass.

"OK pretending there were no laws and no consequences, umm, actually pretending to have the arrogance of the people we were just talking about, come to think of it, but not because I thought my dick was a magic wand, I still don't know if I could do something like that. I mean, maybe on a hippy commune in a jungle with, I don't know," she waved her hands over her head, "a tribal elder who would come and inspect the office and monitor the condom supplies." 

She bounced out of her seat and he followed her movement as she looked over the texts on her bookshelves for a long time, before turning to face him again. Her blush deepened. "Actually, I thought you were just interested in me, for me."

"I am." Gwaine was quick to approach her. "I wanted you to work with me, yes, but I would be happy if I got the chance to see you. You're not imagining that." He laughed. "I'm not exactly known for my subtlety."

"No." He didn't dare touch her, but they were standing very close. Almost impercetably, she leaned towards him. He had to force his hand to stay limp at his side. She shook her head as if to clear it. "This is just insane. I mean do you even see boundaries?"

"I'm standing a million miles away watching the woman I want flush pink. I can feel how warm you are. I can see from your body language that you would probably let me kiss you and I'm not moving an inch. I worked for a year. I did all of it, Elena, so I would have a chance to talk to you, like we're doing now."

She placed her hands on his shoulders, small hands; they felt light and very warm; he could feel them through his three spring layers as if he were naked under her touch.

"Do you think you can really do that," she asked, "really offer sex to people in a therapeutic position and still come home to somebody and belong to them."

"Yes," he said because such a thing was absolutely possible. "Yes."

Elena kissed him then. She was thorough and quiet, taking her time, rising up on her toes. At long last his hands found her waist and he pulled her closer, warming her lower back with his hand.

"I have a proposition for you," he said when they parted. She laughed with her mouth wide open, which was a wonderful first.

"What? Another one?"

"In for a penny, in for a pound," Gwaine tried not to show any triumph. He tucked his hands into his pockets, casually. "I promised my mate, Merlin, I'd look out for him at the club. He has a friend he's been going with but she's only tiny and I thought he could use a couple more around. Would you care to come with me, have a dance and a drink and keep him company? It's mostly a lot of men, but I don't mind if you don't."

Elena cocked her head and looked at him for a long time. When she spoke, he recognized the low relaxed tone of her voice; he'd always been able to guess from a woman's voice when she was going to say yes.

"A group date? Isn't that awfully fourth form?"

"Consider it your opportunity to play superhero then and protect a good man from villains."

"I like the sound of that," she conceded.

"I thought you might."

They both laughed and he didn't think he was imagining the layers of it, layers that usually took years to develop, where they were making fun of themselves and each other, referencing other conversations they'd had like that first one, when he'd said she wanted too much to take care of other people instead of letting herself enjoy him.


	22. Table for Three

Arthur didn't make his usual Thursday appointment. He had meant to. Several times he picked up the phone only to go dizzy and put it down again. For a while he toyed with the idea of making his secretary do it like he did with the dentist, but the terror of making the nature of the appointment public stopped him. The appointment didn't get made and after a while, he realized he wasn't going to see Gwaine again.

Saturday was always his catch up day with Gwaine, when they combined make up appointment with a little date coaching. Sometimes Gwaine made him try on clothes or talked over what happened at the club. Now, when Saturday came around he rang Morgana instead.

"Arthur, what do you want?"

"Can't I just call to see how my sister is doing?" Arthur remembered there were some events for her upcoming nuptials, outlined in several colors of highlighter on his desk. "Maybe you might want to talk about the plans you have in the works?"

"Cut the bull, Arthur. You can't talk about the wedding for five minutes without going cross-eyed. What's really going on?" 

"Fine. I'm looking for company, I guess, Morgana. I'm trying to ..." He took several large breaths. The receiver was sweaty in his hand. "I just feel at sea, somewhat and I need to be with someone who knows what I mean without a lot of explanations. I need..." He needed to talk about Gwaine but he wasn't going to.

"Jesus Christ. Stop before you give yourself an aneurism." He heard the sound of cupboards slamming. "Why is there never anything to eat here even though I am always at the shops? Listen. What time is it?" Arthur looked at the clock on the microwave where his coffee was spinning around.

"Just going 10 O'clock."

"Alright. Tonight you are going to be giving me and Leon a dinner in honor of our engagement at our place."

"I thought I was holding that at the office with our friends?"

"Yes, but you realized you needed to do something smaller and more intimate with the two of us. Wasn't that nice of you? There's going to be another thing, much larger at his parents' house, but this will be just us."

'You sure he won't mind?" Arthur's hadn't known they were a we to the point that they had to be seen at the same time.

"It's almost insulting how happy he is to share me with other people." Morgana's voice didn't sound insulted. Smug he might have said, or contented. " Anyway, this way I get to take mother's china out." 

Arthur thought about things he had seen in Morgana's couch. He imagined Leon's pants there. They would probably be dingy.

"What about me? Are you sure I don't mind?"

"Nonsense. Thinking about someone other than yourself for once will be good for you. Be a love, would you, Arthur, and stop by the bank? I think I'd like to use the plate that's been there for a quarter century now. And I'll take care of the food as long as you pay for it. There's nothing in the house."

Six hours later and loaded down with a heavy mahogany chest, Arthur stood at Morgana's door. She looked radiant, but that was hardly new these days. It was the space behind her he didn't recognize.

"I never realized the flat went back so far." Arthur placed the chest on the table in the entry and looked around, baffled. Arthur had rarely been in his sister's place for more than a second. Most of the things he recalled from when it was the family's were still there: The sconces over the mirrors, the Edwardian wood work. What was so different? He kept moving back and back, looking for something that was missing.

"I was using two bedrooms for storage," Morgana stalked through a door way that used to be closed and came back with a wine glass for each of them. "Once I got rid of all the extra stuff, I had the floor plan opened up."

Arthur realized the thing that was missing was not so much the extra walls as the bags and boxes and wardrobes that used to clutter up the space. She turned him around to face a view of twinkling lights and the river. "Now you can see the view from almost anywhere."

"Here's to the view, Morgana." He clinked his glass with hers. The door opened. There was the cheerful, domestic sound of keys and coats and bags dropping. The voice, however, was not one of the ones Arthur almost remembered from the distant past.

"Am I late? You haven't started drinking without me?" 

It was Leon at the door, smiling, slightly rumpled and dusty. He brought with him an air of long confinement somewhere where there were chemicals and fluorescent lights. He had, Arthur realized, opened the door with his own key, not that it was surprising. Morgana may have spent the afternoon with Arthur, but she spoke mostly of Leon and her sapphire ring twinkled every time she moved her hand.

"It's just a hardship glass," Arthur said, watching Leon hang his coat up in a shockingly empty cupboard, "since I had to drag my carcass here. Morgana wouldn't let me have the dinner at my place even though it's in your honor."

"Well you know you can't cook, Arthur," Morgana said.

"Neither can you!"

"True, but I can get Florins to deliver."

And they had, complete with a bottle of wine that was not part of their personal cache and a huge arrangement of lilies, probably the contribution of the heart broken owner. Everything was arrayed on the dining room table that now presided over the middle of the flat in a glittering display that almost, but not quite covered up how few they were to celebrate the engagement. Just three.

"I'm afraid I mostly contributed the silver I got out of the vault." Arthur shrugged. "I almost wish our father were here to see it put to good use."

"Almost." Morgana whispered. She squeezed his hand. "Mum would have loved to see this table set again."

Arthur was aware that Leon was watching them. He felt an itch to get rid of him, which was not fair. Leon saved him the trouble.

"You know what, I'm going to take a shower. I smell like rat's piss. Save the champagne for when I get back, you two."

As soon as he was gone, Morgana turned to him.

"Leon knows I want to talk to you. I didn't even have to whisper in his ear. I can't believe how lucky I am."

Arthur nodded. It was true, but he didn't feel all that chuffed about it at the moment. He took another sip.

"He did stink a bit, to be honest."

Morgana laughed, but sobered quickly.

"It is odd that it isn't just us, the two of us, isn't it? Tell me you don't mind. I can get him to leave if you need." Arthur knew not to confirm his jealousy. The word hung between them without anyone having to utter it. He sighed, swirled the liquid in his glass, considered and dismissed the idea of taking her hand.

"You laugh a lot more now, Morgs, and you aren't anywhere as mean as you used to be. I'm glad."

She nodded and the other words, too, did not need to be spoken.

"I really wish there were another place at this table." Arthur started to open his mouth and she narrowed her eyes. "And I'm not talking about dad. You've been with Gwaine for a year, Arthur and I know you said the therapy is working. Haven't you met anyone at all? When we go to meet Leon's family next week we are going to be hideously outnumbered. You really should bring a date. Mustn't let down the side."

Arthur collapsed on the couch. She sat next to him, leaning ever so slightly into his space as she did now, so that he could feel that he was supporting some of her weight when she lifted her glass. 

"There was this woman. Do you remember those people from the Spanish merger? I meant to tell you about her, but um..."

"You found out you're gay?" 

"No, no it was more like I kept seeing you in her." He gulped his wine and refilled it, unwilling to meet Morgana's eyes just yet. He didn't want to talk about the details of his therapy just now. "Scared the pants off me, or on me, whatever. So I've really decided to stick with the gents, as it were." He refilled his glass again and this time Morgana smacked his hand away.

"That's enough for you. So am I going to meet any of these gentlemen?"

Arthur froze. Faces had been bobbing up in his mind and he'd ruthlessly pushed them down again: Gwaine, his father. Where they had been he saw a halo of his mother's blonde hair and he saw Merlin. People he'd forgotten that he wanted to remember.

"You know I think there is somebody I could care about. A lot."

"Oh? I like the sound of this."

"Yes, there is the minor problem that he doesn't know. We've never been on a date. Well we don't get on, really."

"So naturally you're going to ask him tonight, grab the bull by the horns?" Morgana's smirk was very much like his own.

"I am a Pendragon." Arthur could feel his nerves come back, nerves of an anticipatory kind this time.

"Just promise me you'll be careful, Arthur?" Morgana reached out a hand and gently, tentatively brushed the hair from his face. He held his breath. He was pretty sure he didn't mind her hand. "You've said you and this bloke don't get on and that concerns me. I've been there. And men can be..." She turned her head away. "Men can be rough sometimes."

The idea of skinny, self righteous Merlin causing anyone physical harm was almost comical. Arthur didn't laugh.

"You know how to track me down. If you call at midnight and I don't answer, come and find me."


	23. Beautiful

Arthur told himself this was nothing new. He'd queued for the club before. He was used to the bouncer by now with his velvet rope and his clip board and the biceps that bulged into the hundreds of centimeters every time he crossed his arms. 

He even, briefly, considered what the man would look like naked, before deciding that blokes who were as tall and immutable as trees scared the fuck out of him. 

"All right then, you two." The bouncer gestured to the uni kids in front of Arthur. "And you, blondie." And there it was, what he was afraid of, a quick one two glance like he'd never had before. Arthur didn't mistake it for flirtation. He was pretty sure the guy had an entwife and a couple of saplings back home. The look was for Arthur's shirt, Arthur's somewhat feminine shirt. He registered as a different type now.

A no-way-he's-straight type.  
.  
Arthur grit his teeth, using a little bit of extra force to push his way into the noise and the crowd. This was the first time he'd been out since the disaster of his last therapy session and there was still a cloud of humiliation around him, the stench of which he seemed to smell everywhere 

For days he had regretted the day in Gwaine's office. Sometimes he called Gwaine a coward, shouting at the walls of his darkened bedroom that it was a simple matter of honesty. Gwaine should have said yes to him, should have acknowledged that he was already together with Arthur, that they were already more than a therapist and client. Sometimes he railed at Gwaine for the opposite. How dare he let himself go like that? He dare he enjoy himself so much, how dare he relax when it was his obligation to protect Arthur, to guide him safely, not exploit his knowledge of Arthur for a more satisfying fuck.

On the third day, he switched to yelling at himself. Why had he given so much to a man in an office? He had lavished on Gwaine warmth he didn't know he had. Gwaine had been surprised, he remembered, before he turned cold. Where was Arthur's passion when he was out meeting people? With Gwaine he had bared his body, donned embarrassing purple prophylactics, made love. There was not a hint of these intentions, of any final destination in his public behavior with other men. No wonder he never got anywhere.

He danced, sure, but he didn't try to appeal to the eyes that were always dragging after his. And Merlin. He liked Merlin. He was fairly certainly Merlin liked him, But what had he done to demonstrate that interest?

Cornered him like an asshat at a first year mixer, explained in detail why it was that Merlin was ruder than he was. Well that was certainly true, but Arthur was beginning to worry, now, that Merlin wouldn't know he wanted anything more than an argument.

After the dinner with Morgana and Leon, red with shame in his bedroom, he'd pawed through his clothes for something to wear to really pull this time, but everything he had was a copy of what Gwaine had picked out for him. In the end he had stalked out to a louche shop with scandalous hours and bought something he never would have dreamt of wearing before. The shirt was long and pink and vaguely translucent and it ruched all down the front.

He'd unbuttoned it almost down to the navel.

Today he was going to forget about the ass he'd made of himself, asking his therapist out for a date. He was going to let himself be looked at. He was going to be beautiful.

Arthur scanned the crowd for Merlin's familiar, lanky frame. He was practically always there when Arthur was. Arthur suspected him of following him around, though he wasn't sure how he was doing it. Anticipating Merlin's eyes, he tried not to smooth down the ruches on his shirt for the 14th time that evening. If that was what they were. Morgana would have called them ruffles he was sure. Fiercely, Arthur wished she were there to make fun of him. It would take the sting out of it if Merlin said the same thing.

Thinking of Merlin's mocking expression, chin tilted up, mouth spending some of its lushness on a curling half sneer, Arthur opted for some liquid courage. Being beautiful was much scarier than it looked. He headed over to the bar, checking out the brightly lit tables where he'd met Merlin the first time, the way he always did, in case he might be there again.

Far in the corner of one, huddled next to a blonde girl he didn't recognize, he saw a familiar face. It wasn't Merlin, but it was the next best thing, the shiny -eyed black girl he was always hanging about with. She was a friendly type and laughed at his jokes now and again. Arthur wondered idly if it might not be easier to pick her up than her friend and then dismissed the idea. Pendragons didn't stop pursuing a game plan, simply because it had failed so far. They redoubled their efforts until chance or bankruptcy, or-he seemed to remember from the distant outreaches of his childhood-until the sage advice of their better halves caused them to skip to a new groove.

Would he ever find that last someone? His father certainly hadn't ever again.

Arthur caught himself smoothing down his ruffle again and grimaced, forcing himself to saunter over to the table as if he were used to offering up most of his torso to the public

"So Gwen, is that you? I see you've brought a new friend."

"Oh hi, there." Her eyes flicked to his chest briefly and then she smiled far too wide. Arthur hoped he didn't look ridiculous. It was probably nothing as Gwen was almost always smiling. "This is Ilana."

"Elena, actually." The blonde held out a firm hand. She was wearing a wrap around red dress that was definitely finding purchase on the right places around her body. Arthur wondered if he'd interrupted Gwen's attempt to pull. He had absolutely no idea which kind of women were lesbians. After years of muting his own signals, he despaired of ever reading anyone else's.

"I'm Arthur," he said, the smile dying on his face as Elena did an obvious double take, reading over his features again. Did they perhaps know each other in another context, one where he wasn't parading around half naked in a blouse? "Do I know you?"

"Oh no, no," she looked amused, though, and it might have been a lie, "you just remind me of someone I read about, once."

"OK." Arthur fought not to touch his hair or his chest and not to look over their shoulders. "So have you seen Merlin around?"

"He's right behind you!" 

Merlin was there, carrying four drinks easily, cradled in his long hands. As he took in Arthur's outfit, the glasses started to chatter and one threatened to slip.

"Here you go." Arthur grabbed one, not looking at it or the table he placed it on. He was certain Merlin stared at his chest far longer than necessary. "So do you mind if I join you?" Normally, he would have made a comment about Merlin's clumsiness, but he pocketed the memory of the little slip instead to think about later. 

"I don't know?" Merlin looked a little panicked, glancing around. Arthur remembered the fourth glass; perhaps he was looking for someone he'd come here with. He'd never brought a man to the club before. Arthur found himself frowning and forced himself to keep the eye on the prize and his expression positive, the prize in this case being Merlin's eyes at half mast confusion and his soft, sweet mouth half open.

"Maybe we could dance instead?" Arthur let his heart beat over and over again, all the times that by now he would have sneered or teased.

"Go ahead, Merlin, it's OK. I'll watch your drink for you," Gwen said and then she winked. The wink seemed to reassure Merlin, who snapped his mouth shut and turned to Arthur with his old eye rolling bravado.

"Look, Arthur. It's not that I'm not flattered." His eyes moved back to Arthur's chest again for a moment. "You are really a very good looking bloke." He smirked. "I like the shirt. It suits you."

"Thanks." Arthur felt himself smirk back and wished he hadn't. He knew what was coming next and it was probably going to wipe the look off his face. "But I'm not tempting enough for you?"

"Oh." It was obviously not the answer Merlin expected. "I hadn't really thought about you as such, you know." He grabbed a drink off of the table and took a sip. Arthur watched him, knowing by now that most men would have left, but he was still waiting. Merlin opened his mouth again and Arthur held his breath.

"Merlin, Merlin, there you are. Don't move a muscle now."

Arthur looked up, ready to assess this man, no doubt the owner of the fourth drink, and possibly Merlin's date, certainly someone who already assumed the right to dance with the man he wanted.

"Gwaine?"

It was his therapist, looking pretty much as he always did in a tight jumper and jeans. HIs hand was on Merlin's shoulder and his face was pure blank surprise.

"Hey Gwaine. So Arthur's the one we were talking about before," Merlin said, "you know." He gave a little gesture with his head that wasn't at all subtle, apparently missing the fact that Gwaine had recognized Arthur. 

"Gwaine?" Arthur said again. He took two steps closer. Gwaine still smelled like sandlewood. "You and Merlin have been talking about me?"

"Wait. How do you know each other?" Merlin looked from one to the other. The women, too, were watching. Arthur didn't care. There was so much he didn't care about.

"He's my therapist, actually. My sex therapist." Arthur pronounced the words with all the gusto Gwaine had ever asked for. " And he was the one who kept encouraging me to talk to you." Arthur looked at Gwaine's hand still squeezed possessively over Merlin's shoulder. " I guess he didn't realize you were his own boyfriend."

"Merlin's not my boyfriend." Gwaine spoke quickly, with a hoarse voice, but Arthur could tell that the calm was coming back, that Gwaine's endless flexibility would ooze back over this and swallow up all traces of what he'd done. 

"Oh right, of course. It's nothing personal. You help everyone, right Gwaine.. Maybe you just thought you had to warn him that I have problems and it's best to avoid people like me, right? Who need to be coddled along because we aren't quite up to it in the sack?" Arthur could feel his heart pounding high and the adrenalin pooling, but it was not building towards a headache, he could feel it ready to spill outside.

"Hold on, Arthur. You've got the wrong end of the stick here." Gwaine's face was contorted in an uncharacteristic, thinking frown.

"Why did you mention me to him at all?" Arthur did not want to be talking, but all the barriers that had held so long his entire life seemed to be gone when he needed them. He shook with nervous rage. "Is he another patient. Do you sleep with him, too?"

"Gwaine, could you come here for a minute? I think we need to talk." Merlin was pulling on Gwaine's arm, Arthur saw. They were so familiar with each other. He couldn't stand it. He pulled on Merlin's other arm, for the first time since he met him feeling genuine ire.

"No, anything you have to say about me you can say while I'm right here."

"Fine. I thought I'd spare you." Merlin glared at him and then at Gwaine, pulling his arms back to himself. "Didn't I just hear Arthur say you encouraged him to talk to me? This guy? The same one you told me was a predator and I should watch out for him? Sounds dodgy, you said. I'd better to come with you, you said. And now I find out you're coaching him from the other side? What the ever lasting fuck, Gwaine? What's going on?"

"I'm what? I'm a predator?" The injustice of it brought tears of frustration to Arthur's eyes. "This is the first gay club I've ever been in." He turned to Gwaine, blinking. "You know that. Out of anyone, you knew what it took for me even to walk in here. And you, " he pointed at Merlin. "Are the first man I've ever really fancied. I'm not a predator, I'm just a...a...well a bit of an idiot. My God. I would have been terrified to even talk to you again if Gwaine hadn't kept at me. I thought you didn't like me but Gwaine said it was just chemistry. He said that you probably liked fighting with me. He slept with me and pretended to be you."

He pointed a shaky finger at Gwaine.

"You took Merlin out? Why him and not me?. Can you tell me and not lie?"

There was a loud slap of a glass hitting the table. 

"Actually, I think it is high time that Gwaine talked to me."

Everyone's heads whirled around to the woman in the red dress. "I'm the only person here who's actually Gwaine's date, as far as I know?" She made a show of look around. "Though maybe Gwen should tell me if I should check the loo to make sure there's no one else lurking about." She stood up abruptly and then swayed a bit. "Damn it. I knew I should never wear anything I can't run in."

Elena walked out. For a moment Gwaine looked between Merlin and Arthur.

"Ach I don't know where to start first." He peered over his shoulder where Elena was already disappearing into the crowd. "I'm sorry. I have to go." He turned and ran after her. 

"Well fuck." Merlin sank back down. He and Arthur stared at each other for a minute.

"You know I think they have a sandwich platter at the bar. I think we could all use a little something." Gwen worried her lip, looking closely at Merlin. "Merlin? Is that alright? You'll call me if you need anything, right?"

"Right. Thanks, Gwen."

Arthur and Merlin were left staring at each other some more.


	24. Running in High Heels

Gwaine ran after Elena, pushing his way ruthlessly past a lot of very muscular men and earning some very fierce glares. It was so much like the first time he talked to her, he laughed. It was not a joyful laugh, just a ridiculous one.

He'd thought he'd have more time. He thought there'd be a chance to square things with Arthur, to explain where his heart had gone to Merlin, that once he'd gotten a hold of Elena, there'd be time enough later to set everything to rights, as he only could set things to rights with her there. He wondered how he came to be running so hard now that it was too late to hurry.

Then he almost bumped into her, she stopped so fast.

"You know what. I'd like to take you up on that original offer of coffee, if you don't mind." Her lips were tight and she looked the way he imagined Hunith would look, if she found out about him. 

"Yes, alright."

They walked silently across the way to a cafe, a half way decent one that kept hours with the club. They weren't the only patrons who'd crossed over, though they were easily the most miserable pair. Elena's high heels kept very good rhythm for once, clip clopping back with their order.

"So," she said "That's Arthur. The one from the letters." He nodded. "He's a fine looking man. Very passionate. I can see why you took an interest." She took an aggressive sip of too hot coffee and winced. Gwaine swallowed in sympathy and his fingers twitched with the urge to reach out and squeeze her hand. He didn't say anything. A memory of Arthur's hand sweeping through his hair, a memory of pleasure surged through him and he chose not to voice what he thought about Arthur.

"I take it," Elena continued in the same dry voice, "that you were encouraging him to come here and flirt with a man who turned out to be none other than Merlin?" Gwaine nodded again, helpless to stop her reading of events. "The same Merlin you are so possessive of you want to surround him with legions of females, people he wouldn't find sexually attractive. That's pretty funny."

"You and Gwen are great girls, but I wouldn't say you were legions." Gwaine couldn't help pointing out. He regretted it instantly.

"Gwaine! If you had just wanted to protect Merlin you wouldn't have invited me. You would have shown up here with two brawny men. And don't tell me you don't know any."

"I don't like being psychoanalyzed."

"Then you shouldn't date therapists!."

"Don't give me that bullshit, alright." Gwaine leaned forward. "I know I screwed up. I know I'm different around Merlin." He thought of how hurt he'd been when he met Gwen, too hurt to bring Elena up after all, because he'd lost the urge to bare himself to his friend. " I do things - good things or bad things- because of what he means to me, but don't go around analyzing it all like fucking English class, please, Elena like you're not in it because it's about you, too."

"Fine. Let's talk about me. You called me. You asked me to come out with you because you won a bet."

"I met your conditions, your unbelievably high expectations."

"Are you saying I'm not worth it?"

"No, you are." 

She stopped and he had a moment of hope before her eyes found the logical thread that led, eventually, to the lonely and corrupt navel of Gwaine Greene.

"Gwaine, there is no way you had closure with the man I saw today. He thought that Merlin was a patient of yours and he was hysterical with jealousy. That's a relationship, Gwaine, even if it's been cut off at the knees." She bit her lips even harder and it made them lose color. "I didn't think you were a liar."

"I'm not a liar, Elena. I really like what I do and I know I'm good at it. Those letters weren't fake. I've helped Morgana and Arthur and a lot of other people besides. If I'm guilty of anything, it's rushing it along." He saw her expression and anticipated the next objection. "You're right. I shouldn't have called so soon. It was just that when I had the letter in my hands and I hadn't seen you in so long and I was hungry to show you what I'd done and hungry to see your face again, I..."

"So why were you in such a hurry that day, Gwaine? What couldn't wait;" Elena interrupted him with her eyes unblinking on his, "that you had to call me right away?" Gwaine looked away, remembering how uncomfortably close he'd gotten to taking what Arthur offered. 

"You got scared, didn't you, of what happened in Arthur's therapy. He was the one you consulted me about originally, wasn't he?. " He didn't answer and she showed no mercy. "Are you in love with Arthur?"

"Yes," he whispered.

"And how about your old friend. Are you in love with Merlin?

Gwaine squeezed his eyes shut and his chest hurt. "I don't know. In some ways I always have been. Yes."

Elena sank back on her seat like her strings had been cut. Her voice came out squeezed.

"You know it's so funny. You kept telling me I wasn't thinking enough about me. That I should just sit back and enjoy your attention. Well here I am and what has it got me? You invite me out so that I can be a buffer between you and the other people you're afraid to hurt the way you're not afraid to hurt me." She snorted. "Wow, chivalry's not dead."

"Elena..." That wasn't all of it at all. Elena didn't suffer him to speak again.

"I don't like to be used, Gwaine."

"That wasn't my intention, Elena. Damn it all." She stuck her hand up and wiped her eyes, quickly, but not fast enough to hide that she was crying.

"I really fucking liked you and you know what? I bet Arthur really liked you too. And Merlin. I bet you could have had any of us if you could have picked just one. Too bad you don't think enough of any us to trust them that much."

Elena scraped back her chair and headed for the door, while Gwaine stood there, still surprised that she had tears for him. He hadn't dared hope he was anywhere near so close to her. As he stood still, she stomped back and retrieved a little red purse that matched her dress, the size and shape of a letter. "Of course I had to come back for this sodding thing," she muttered and he took advantage to say.

"Wait, Elena, I want you. It's true. I remade my life for you. It's real. I have an office with a hatstand, for fuck's sake. I work with people because you inspire me to do it and it's not something I could have done for anybody else. I think that's why I got in such trouble with everyone, actually. Not just despite you, but because of you. Before I met you, I didn't recognize what love was."

Elena howled with frustration. "My God, Gwaine, that has got to be the worst line I have ever heard. Just for that bit of tastelessness I think I will call the coppers. Good luck wondering if I'm kidding or not."

"I would never use such a terrible line," Gwaine said to the lovely, receding back. "That's how you're supposed to know I mean it."

A number of patrons seemed to have drunk enough coffee to be awake and he left the place to a smattering of their applause.

When he got home he saw there were messages on his phone. He turned them on and then fled the room because he didn't know how to answer the familiar voices he heard. The simple misunderstanding at the club, of course, he could fix. Merlin was his friend and not his client. He had never mentioned any names. Arthur was never discussed.

What confessions Elena had winkled out of him were a different matter. They were tight hard facts, any one of which would ruin him as a friend or a helper or a lover to the others. There was a reason he had not wanted to spit these things up. Gwaine ran his hands through his hair till he was taller by several inches. By God, he was dirty. Time for a shower.

There was this, at least, he thought as he padded down the hall, buck naked. He didn't need to worry about confronting anyone. Merlin's room was empty and bare and his dressing gown was totally pointless with no one to mind his nakedness. Gwaine threw it in his suitcase and made it the first thing he packed.


	25. One and Only

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Arthur and Merlin get together in this chapter.

"Oh my God, I feel sick." Arthur stared at the floor because it seemed to be the one place that wasn't moving. His migraine had come back after all.

"Should I get Gwen? She always has something in her purse." Arthur didn't dare pick his head up. He could hear in Merlin's voice the intention to get rid of him in case he was crazy or about to vomit, or both.

"I wish you'd stay. You always make the migraine go away," he said, wistfully.

"You have a migraine?"

"Mm...like the first time I met you. You made it go away." He found it was safe to raise his eyes up and look. Merlin's eyes were round with concern and probably very blue. He felt the pain start to recede.

"Is that why you were such a prat that time?" 

"No, not really." Arthur couldn't help barking out a truncated laugh. "It does explain how reluctant I was to move, I guess."

"If I'd known that I wouldn't have been quite so offended; I know about migraines. My mum gets them."

"Don't try to give me this nonsense about how nice you are. I told you at the time I had a headache and you didn't care then." Arthur narrowed his eyes, which was a mistake "Ow...fuck."

"Relax your face. The tension makes it worse." Arthur screwed his face up again to tell Merlin where he could get off lecturing him about migraines and then winced. "Don't worry. I'll take your irritated expression as read," Merlin laughed and swallowed down the last of his drink. He eyed Arthur's and picked it up and then put it down again.

"It's fine with me." Arthur pointed to the drink, "Go ahead."

"Nah, Gwen wouldn't like it. She's knows I'm trying to cut down." He paused. "Actually, Gwaine wouldn't like it either, though he wouldn't say anything, just try to distract me. Or at least he would have once. I'm not sure I know what Gwaine might or might not do lately. I think I haven't been paying enough attention."

"So he is your therapist, too?" Merlin's expression hovered somewhere between offended and amused and then cramped with sympathetic embarrassment. "Oh Christ, he's not, is he?. I have made an everlasting ass out of myself again." 

"Well it was a spectacular scene." The swine Merlin laughed. Stupid beautiful swine. And they said he was a prat! "But no, Gwaine's a friend, a very old friend."

"Oh." Arthur replayed the conversation around in his head and came to some uncomfortable conclusions. "So basically I've been annoying you and Gwaine offered to come fight me off."

"And he was the one encouraging you to hit on me to begin with. Rich right? But then this is Gwaine we're talking about."

"I didn't think Gwaine's instincts were so far off." Arthur was offended on his therapist's behalf. Morgana only hired the best.

"Well, he was right; you do kind of corner me a lot." Arthur groaned and put his head down again. To his surprise, he felt Merlin's fingers rubbing the tense spot at the back of his neck. "I thought you were a little off and you are." Arthur muttered something; he wasn't sure what. His desire to defend himself fought with the need to keep Merlin's merciful hand on him and lost. "But if Gwaine's been coaching you...well. He always comes on too strong. I think might be reconsidering my opinion of your general character."

The word character had many delightful whispery sounds in it that Arthur had never noticed before. He shivered and then felt Merlin learning closer to his ear. "You OK there?" Arthur shuddered again.

Gwen came around, presumably with the sandwiches. Arthur couldn't be sure as he had his head on the table again and was thinking of square roots in an attempt to stave off a return of either pain or a huge wave of lust or both.

"Oh look at the poor thing," Arthur heard her voice overhead and, for the first time, was deeply grateful that she never seemed to just leave Merlin alone. She sounded so kind. "We've got to get him out of here, don't you think?"

"I was thinking I might need to run down Gwaine and talk to him, actually."

"Oh no, I think we'd best leave him to Elena." Gwen's voice took on a certain asperity. "Arthur, do you want us to take you home?"

"Do you live nearby?" Arthur heard the hope in his voice, as a late echo, right around the time he realized they had not been inviting him. He wanted to be devastated but found his capacity for embarrassment had been used up. He watched with a curious detachment as Gwen and Merlin communicated almost entirely with their eyebrows.

"We'd be glad to offer you a little tea and some of our famous petit fours. You know, since this whole thing gave you a migraine and all. It was my misunderstanding with Gwaine and I feel partially responsible. " Merlin said when they'd done, while Gwen attempted to wrap the sandwiches in what passed for napkins at the club. "We've got extra at home. We do catering," he explained, "me and Gwen. Um and maybe...um". His eyes seemed to have stalled on Arthur's shirt.

"And maybe I might have to go out again, or maybe not," Gwen said firmly. As she was the last and most decisive speaker, they followed her meekly out of the club.

Arthur didn't tell them as they left that he was feeling pretty good now. If Merlin's mother really did suffer from migraines he probably knew and had somehow, miraculously, conspired to give Arthur the excuse to follow him home.

Gwen and Merlin lived someplace a little bit awful. It compensated for its tiny size with very small furniture and a number of bright silk sari's placed strategically to hint at the separation between lounge and hallway and dining

"It looks better when there's light coming in," Merlin said.

"I didn't say anything."

"You didn't have to. I can feel you sneering from here." Arthur thought this was a bit unjust, but attempted to unsneer his face anyway, just in case. It was not his finest hour and he was afraid to say anything that might break this fragile wish come true. Here he was in Merlin's flat, seeing him bathed in simple white light for once. His eyes were a darker blue than he had thought. "I suppose you live in Chelsea," Merlin interrupted his thoughts, "with a view of the Thames and two baths and a butler's pantry."

"No, that's my sister, Morgana. She inherited our father's flat with all the space for entertaining." Gwen came in with the mugs of tea and he put his on the little coaster with the painting on it. Arthur took it gingerly, aware of how his knees were practically kissing Merlin's at the tiny table. He picked up one of the petit fours and sank his teeth into a tiny stack of perfection. "Oh these are fantastic." Arthur forced himself to wait for the first hit of vanilla and raspberry to fade, before taking a second bite." I have to tell my sister. She'll love them."

"His sister has a butler's pantry," Merlin said. Gwen's eyes widened with longing, 

"Really? How big would you say it was?"

"More to the point, my sister does the catering for our company. She's eager to have someone do something really good and fresh like this." Arthur looked at their faces. "It's just good business, not a favor." He coughed. "I'm afraid it's obvious there's been too much mixing of business and pleasure lately. Perhaps I shouldn't have mentioned."

"No, no, that's quite alright. We're happy to have more work, aren't we Gwen?"

"Oh, I think so."

There was a nod from everyone, followed by a very long silence. Arthur stood up, his head clear enough now to see that he was not exactly where he needed to be after all. He rose slowly, hoping that the tiny chair would not cling to his buttocks and stand up with him. His hand shook the mugs on the table

"No, stay, please. Sit. I'm sorry this is so awkward,". Gwen herself was up and rushing to put her coat on again. She gave Arthur a kiss on the cheek and whispered in his ear in passing, "Just nod if what you really want is to know Merlin and you would be good to him."

Arthur nodded, and then sat stunned as the door shut. Now it was Merlin's turn to put his head in his hands.

"Oh my God, I love Gwen but she is not subtle, not subtle at all."

"I'm surprised she didn't try to warn me off like Gwaine did."

"Oh Gwen likes you. She says she has a bell that rings for creepers and with you." Merlin slashed his hands in the air. "Nada. Completely silent."

"So why didn't you listen to Gwen?"

"Gwaine's known me longer. I don't know. Like I said you were off somehow. And Gwaine's a lot pushier than Gwen."

Having observed them both now, Arthur had his doubts about that. Gwen struck him as the kind of person who always got her way in the end. He sighed. Gwen had given him this chance; it was now or never. He might as well say his piece. It wasn't like there was any more dirty linen to air.

Arthur looked up at Merlin. His eyes were beautiful, slightly crinkled with concern. He was a bit judgy, yes, but sweet and beautiful and Arthur wanted him. He put his mug down with a decisive clatter.

"Then here's me. I'm bisexual. Until a year ago I thought I was straight. I've never been in a relationship or even had more than one or two dates. Every single person who ever had sex with me thought I was awful. I am well to do and somewhat bossy, though nowhere near as much so as my sister. I honestly thought that you enjoyed flirting with me. I am very eager to get to know you better. And yes I would like to sleep with you." 

"Wow. That was the most out there, baldest come on I ever heard."

"Well, I figured there was nothing left to lose really,". Arthur considered Merlin. "Or was there? Are you put off?"

"Maybe a little." Merlin laughed, suddenly, louder than Arthur had heard before. "You definitely should not go into advertising." He almost fell, rocking his chair back, but when he finished laughing his eyes were serious, meeting Arthur's.

"OK, my turn. I've always known I was gay." Merlin picked up a coaster and twisted it and put it down again with a sigh. "Two years ago my lover died in a car accident and I haven't been able to meet anyone since. You are the only person I have really paid attention to since then and I thought it was because I didn't like you. Now I think I might like you. I am fairly sure you will be fine in bed because Gwaine is a good teacher." Merlin's smile faltered. "Also, I have a big mouth."

"Gwaine." Arthur was not surprised that Merlin had slept with Gwaine at some point. It was on the tip of his tongue to say, "He taught you, too?" He said, "Let's not talk about him, yet."

"What do you want to do instead?"

"I could never get you to dance with me."

"Seriously?"

Arthur was serious and, after putting aside all the tables and chairs and commandeering Merlin's iPod station, he beckoned with both hands.

"Come here, Merlin."

"You want me to dance to ...?"

Many of his sessions with Gwaine had started with dancing. It was how Arthur had grown comfortable with his sensuality, with reaching out to other people with his body. But this dancing did not seem to have anything in common with those times with Gwaine. 

"It reminds me of you."

"You don't even know me."

"I think I do a little. I hope to know you more soon." Arthur wished he were taller so that he could sink his nose into Merlin's mop of dark hair. He had slow danced often, with girls, when he was younger. It was the one romantic activity at which he'd excelled- perhaps because it had not required eye contact- and he'd always loved burying his face in the girls' hair, while rocking gently side to side. Now he satisfied himself with pulling Merlin closer and resting his head on his shoulder. It was perfect, until, quite suddenly it wasn't anymore.

Pulling away, he looked at Merlin's face. His eyes were closed, just beginning to flutter open at the interruption. Before they could open completely, he pressed his mouth to Merlin's.

Immediately, they were not in rhythm with the slow song anymore, finding some other, more insistent rhythm of their own. Arthur had never experienced such a sudden wave of desire before, not in all the explorations of this year with Gwaine.

"Oh," he said. "I want to get this off of you." He plucked at Merlin's cashmere sweater, trying to find a way into it or a way out of it.

"You first," Merlin said, "You're hardly wearing that shirt anyway." A few seconds later, Arthur's pink frilly shirt was on the ground and he was growling, half naked while Merlin flicked the point of his tongue over Arthur's nipples.

"You're going to fall over, doing that," Arthur whispered and then wished he hadn't because it was a gauche thing to say.

"I'm on my knees now," Merlin looked up at him from where he knelt, his eyes mischievous, his hands already on Arthur's flies.

"Oh you are, aren't you." Now he could reach Merlin's hair, flick his hands through it. "You're pretty like that." Arthur was unable to take his eyes off of Merlin, memorizing the line of his back and the turn of his head as he removed Arthur's shoes, one at a time and laid them carefully aside.

The jeans followed and then Arthur was wearing nothing but black Calvin Klein briefs.

"I always thought you'd be the boxer type," Merlin smiled, but Arthur could not answer him back. He pressed Merlin to him, groaning as there was no resistance, as Merlin turned his head greedily to wet the cotton all up and down Arthur's cock.

Had Arthur ever not wanted this?

"Take it off, take everything off. I want your mouth on me."

Merlin obliged and soon Arthur was watching his own cock bouncing out of his pants onto his bare stomach as big and hard as he'd ever seen it. All he wanted was for Merlin to take him in his pretty mouth. He put his hand on Merlin's head, just resting, feeling all the pleasure he had in his center, letting it stay a latent warmth for another moment.

Merlin was smiling over Arthur's bare cock. He couldn't keep his mouth closed, it seemed, even when he wasn't talking his nonsense. Arthur smeared his thumb over the smile where they were joined. There was a moment where the words he wanted to say seemed to be carved out of big, wooden blocks. Then he noticed again how ridiculously plush Merlin's mouth was and the words of praise came out of themselves. "Your mouth is really nice, so full. I have to see what you look like when you're sucking me." Their eyes met and, of course, Merlin didn't suck, but smiled more and then licked a huge, goofy lick all up the length and giggled. 

Arthur felt like an ass; it took him entirely out of the moment. The room was brightly lit, probably to make up for its size and it was a public space and he felt very much on display.

He put his face in his hands, feeling how hot his cheeks were. "Oh Christ, you're a pain in the arse. Is everything a joke to you"

"Oh I didn't mean to be a pain the the arse Merlin mouth wasn't anywhere near Arthur's cock now; he just had his hand wrapped loosely around the base and he was eyeing it with an exagerated leer. "I mean just look at this yummy thing. I was kind of hoping you'd be a pain in my arse if you get what I mean?"

Arthur groaned and Merlin stood up and removed his hands from his face, his features pinched together in concern.

"Hey, what happened. Did I embarrass you?" Arthur winced and Merlin tutted. "I liked all those things you were saying. Don't mind me. I like to laugh when I'm happy. Don't you like to laugh when you're happy?"

"I don't know." Arthur said, glancing at Merlin briefly as if the sight of him might burn, "I've never been happy before."

Merlin placed his arms over Arthur's shoulders and this time he was the one swaying them together. It was like and unlike all the old dances, following instead of leading, leaning into Merlin, feeling the hot stripe of his cock mirrored in the sensation of Merlin's heat, muffled by the cloth, but still clear on his thigh.

"Well let's make you happy and find out."

Arthur groaned again.

"What I really want is to take you some place that's not lit like a fucking stage but still bright enough to see how mindbogglingly gorgeous you are and fit as much of you and as much of me as we can stand into each other."

He looked at Merlin, waiting for the laugh and got only a smile full of teeth.

"I like the sound of that. Will my bedroom do?"

Merlin didn't wait for an answer. He led Arthur by the hand and into a tiny space that was half bed and nicely darkish. Merlin lost little time, stripping off his jeans as soon as he kicked the door closed. He had less luck with the jumper, however, stuck with his arms over his head, blind and half naked."

"Do you always get trapped in your clothes? It must make your nighttime routine awkwar. " Arthur stood behind Merlin and shook his head, feeling a new kind of mirth bubbling up.

"Get me out of here," Merlin's muffled voice had a familiar tinge of outrage to it.

"I'm afraid I can't hear you through there, Merlin."

But Arthur was already crowding his body over Merlin's and replacing Merlin's arms with his. The sensation of Merlin sliding through his arms, grumbling, was the single most delightful thing he had ever felt. It was almost enough to suppress his nervous question: What if Merlin changed his mind after they had been together like so many other people did?

Arthur made himself walk to the bed, his arse bare to Merlin's gaze. No matter what happened after, he would have this memory. He sat up,on his elbows so as not to miss a thing, watching Merlin stepping out of his boxers, his long back bowed down first and then his long arm flung up in the counter movement. Merlin had said he hadn't liked anyone since he had lost his lover. Arthur was aware that he was first of a certain kind to for Merlin, too, but he showed no sign of doubt He'd kicked his clothes away with an eye roll and was standing there naked, leaning on the door jamb, apparently without shame of any kind. No one would ever guess he was taking a new risk and Arthur was proud of his courage, and of his own courage, for that matter. 

There were acres and acres of Merlin, very pink in places and very white. His deep red cock was shocking, standing up on his belly. Arthur had forgotten that he liked cocks, somewhere in the midst of all these personalities and dances and therapist's rooms, and he was astounded at how his own jerked at the sight. "You. Get here, now."

"Oh my, you are bossy. I did wonder." However Merlin did not pause, but coming close, and his obedience needed to be rewarded, even if it did have a cheeky swagger to it. As Merlin clambered on to the bed. Arthur caressed his thighs, one in each hand. He gave a hard squeeze to the muscles there. Merlin laughed and this time it didn't make him feel stupid. Arthur let himself enjoy the feel of Merlin under his hands. Merlin was so narrow in his limbs, Arthur could feel his hands start to reach around the turnings of him. He nuzzled into all the junctures he could find, the place where Merlin's thigh met his groin, and the hairy lower belly. He kneaded the soft skin and perfect round buttocks and this time Merlin sighed.

"You are the most beautiful thing I have ever touched."

Merlin put his hands on the head board, advanced his knees up to the pillow

"Open wide for me, Arthur," he breathed. And this time Arthur obeyed.

Arthur reached his hand around the hot silken cock. He opened his mouth wide and pressed it slowly slowly around the head, pulling his lips together delicately at first and then making his mouth harder until he was licking and sucking in a punishing rhythm. It was so good to do this.

The other four times he had enjoyed sex it had been about listening to Gwaine's voice in his head. Now there were no voices, just Merlin and wanting Merlin. He had never felt anything like this before. At most his rugby games might have been a little the same. Then too there was the quiet in his head as his body obeyed him. But in rugby he'd been mostly alone. There was a brief moment, maybe the completion of the pass or the first song they sang at the pub afterwards, when he'd felt together with someone else, especially the second that a voice joined his if he started singing first. He almost never started the singing.

But now Merlin was there and his hands were pressing the rounds of his arse forward into Arthur's mouth and all the little scraps of connection were nothing to this. The whole thing was the song. His mouth and his hands were full. His balls were heavy and ready and it was like nothing else, nothing.

"I'm going to come, Arthur. Arthur! Oh!"

Arthur looked up at him and loved the sight of his hooded eyes and taught face. He only had a moment to think, "God I love your coming face," when Merlin jerked and jerked and Arthur swallowed and swallowed. He'd never done this before. He and Gwaine used a condom. It was overwhelming and he almost choked on the bitter taste, but he was glad of it, too. Glad that Merlin had used him freely.

When it was done, Melrin sighed and collapsed to the side.

"Oof!" He smiled a slower, shyer smile. Arthur pulled himself up on the bed until Merlin was entirely under him all the better to study this new expression and Merlin turned his head to him . His eyes were glassy and he was pink cheeked and breathless. Arthur curved over him like a horse back rider, like a lamp, like every thing that was just Merlin usually but was now Merlin and this one other. 

"Can I fuck you?" 

He kissed Merlin to find out, happy that he didn't turn away now that he was sated. Arthur's kisses seemed to bounce off him and come back as Merlin's kisses, amplified. 

"Yes." Merlin spread his thighs and Arthur sucked his breath in at the sight.

"Spread them more. Put your knees in your hands and pull hard." Merlin obeyed and Arthur traced the new lines he made with one finger, watching the pink turn to darker red where his arse was open. Arthur's finger circled the furl of his arsehole there. "What do you like? Can I lick you there?"

Arthur looked into Merlin's eyes, knowing full well he'd never rimmed anyone before. He'd come close with Gwaine, almost.

"Yeah," Merlin broke his shape to reach a long arm towards the bedside table. "Here." He tossed a tube of lubricant at Arthur. "I like fingers, too, you know at the same time." He stretched out long for a moment, and gave Arthur a lazy, cat like smile.

Arthur watched him; he could have watched him forever. "You're waiting for me to go back to my position, aren't you!" Merlin huffed. "Bossy prat; I knew you'd be a bossy prat." But he smiled and looked delighted.

Arthur took one of Merlin's long hands in his. He sucked a digit into his mouth, a reliving of what they'd last done together. He manipulated the finger to trace his own lips.

"I'm more than happy to do whatever you tell me to." Arthur waited. Finally, Merlin groaned and shuddered. He picked his knees up and arched himself back, while Arthur chuckled. 

"Yes, there you go."

So much taste, so much scent. What Arthur had been afraid of,he loved now. Arthur made his tongue flat and lapped up the center of Merlin and then he made it hard and poked just with the tip. Merlin started to make sounds, whimpering and sighing for him. When Arthur added one lubed finger he keened. 

"You're going to have to use words to help me, Merlin." Arthur leaned over and whispered in his ear. "Tell me when I've found the spot."

He stayed there and watched Merlin's face as he crooked his finger and the contortion there told him before Merlin spoke.

"Yes, there!" Melrin's eyes flew open. "I thought you said you wanted to rim me."

Arthur found he did want to. He found he could lick and laugh and use his fingers all at the same time because he did like to laugh when he was happy. Merlin was hardening again now and he was saying what sounded like a lot of nonsense. Arthur wasn't hearing any words, but he matched his rhythm to the beat of Merlin's voice, fucking his finger and his tongue the same, until Merlin cried out.

"Enough. Enough. Come on up here. I want you to fuck me." He looked down at Arthur and Arthur felt curiously small, like someone needed to reach for him to pull him back up to the larger world and that was Merlin's arm doing that, his hand bringing Arthur up and then he was bigger than ever, a hero of endless energy, reaching into Merlin and pounding his cries out of him.

Merlin reached for his own cock and his eyes met Arthur's so that he shrank to just Arthur again. It was the best of all.

"I'm going to come again," he said. "Already. What you do to me, Jesus."

"And I"m going to watch you." Arthur kissed his face and liked it so much he kissed Merlin on his eye lids and more until Merlin shook him off.

"Arrg. Stop that? I can't concentrate! '" Arthur didn't mind Merlin's complaint. It was just like when they teased each other at the club, only now the back and forth was where it belonged, in bed. He squirted some lube on Merlin's hand and they watched each other as Merlin sped his hand on his cock. HIs own heat, Arthur ignored as long as could until the spasming of Merlin's body gave him too much pleasure, it spiraled up and up and he was pistoning deeper and harder till he came, too. For a long moment he was suspended in the joy of Merlin's face, expressing their shared pleasure and then it was over. He lay in a pool of sweat on Merlin's hairy chest and it was the strangest, most familiar itch he had ever felt.

He was not nauseous, not at all. Only very, very tired. Merlin stretched his legs out and pushed him over.

"Get off of me, you great prat. As fabulous as that was I still need to breathe."

Arthur sighed and gathered Merlin up on top of him. He pulled his fingers through the thick, dark hair and kissed it again.

"I have a confession to make," he said. 

Merlin pointed his chin up at him.

"Shoot. I'm too shagged out to hold it against you."

"My sister has an engagement party coming up and I would like you to come with me if you can." Merlin didn't say anything, so Arthur waded deeper. "There was something my father used to say to my mum. I don't remember, but my sister says she does. He called her his one and only." Arthur cleared his throat. "I would like to call you that." 

Merlin didn't say anything and Arthur felt the return of someone he had almost forgotten about, which was ridiculous because it was mostly who he was, most of the time. "Shit, I'm sorry. I am pushing, aren't I?" He scrubbed a hand through his hair, remembered it was a hopeless mess and laid his head back down again on Merlin's shoulder, but gingerly. "I know we weren't even on a date before this and now I'm trying to tie you up in a bow. I suppose I need a few more therapy sessions, after all. Merlin?"

When Merlin raised his head up again, he was crying. "Merlin?"

"It's just been a long time." Merlin smiled crooked. "I haven't felt like this for a long time." He reached up and brought Arthur's lips back down to his. "Yes, yes I'll go." They kissed unhurried, as if there had never been anything else to do or say. A siren sounded from somewhere in the lounge.

"What's that?"

"My sister's ring tone. Oh no." He remembered now. "We have the same plan, so we can track each other. It was my idea. I thought she was safer that way." Arthur sat up and looked around for where his underpants might have landed. There was no point trying to explain now why he had thought Morgana needed to be tracked down. It wasn't true anymore. "I agreed to call her tonight and she said if she didn't hear from me, she was going to find me."

A loud buzzing sound filled the tiny flat. "And there she is now."


	26. Ass and Crow

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Morgana chooses not to accept any resignations

Morgana stood at the door like an avenging angel, her black trench coat streaming out behind her. She held her mobile, still beeping, in one hand.

"Arthur! You're fine."

Arthur looked down. He was wearing some tee-shirt of Merlin's he'd found on the floor. It was short and too tight and his belly button showed. 

"I'm fine, Morgana, as you say. I just got busy and I forgot to call you."

"Yes, I can see that." She smirked at his belly button. He blushed.

"Do you want me to call a cab?" Arthur looked behind him. In truth he wanted to show Merlin off. He was absurdly proud of how beautiful he was and how sweet natured, if somewhat bloody minded and also, how much he liked Arthur. On the other hand, he'd left him naked and dripping with various things sisters didn't need to know about.

Morgana raised her gaze to some point behind Arthur. It was Merlin, who having made himself respectable in record time, now looked like a pink cheeked, tousle headed innocent, still wet with soap and water. In his tight belly shirt Arthur felt like a cheap tramp by contrast. 

"Hi, You're Arthur's sister?"

"Morgana. I am happy to meet you." She held out her hand. Merlin wiped his wet hand on his jeans before shaking it. 

"Right. So if you don't need a lift, I think Merlin and I would like to spend some more time together. Do give my regards to Leon." Arthur reached towards the door. Merlin held his hand up.

"Actually, Arthur, maybe you should go back with Morgana."

"What?" Arthur's stomach sank far and fast. He couldn't dig up any words to ask for details, but Merlin supplied them anyway.

"I called Gwaine while you were out here. I was worried, you know, after that cock up at the club and I thought I'd check in. Anyway, he left a really weird new outgoing message on his service and I think I'd better go out there sooner rather than later."

He reached up, his mobile in one hand and holding Arthur's shoulder with the other, he kissed him with a whispered. "This is definitely not over." Then he turned to Morgana. "I'm really happy to meet you, too, Morgana. We should all do brunch, maybe?"

Morgana was leaning on the lintel in the way of someone who decides for herself when she is and is not welcome.

"Are you talking about the Gwaine we all know, the therapist? There aren't that many people named Gwaine. What's wrong with him?"

"You know Gwaine, too? Why am I not surprised." Arthur could have warned Merlin not to roll his eyes like that. Arthur might bluster about Merlin's snarky attitude, but Morgana wouldn't tolerate it.

"Gwaine is a good friend to our family," she snapped. "And if anything is wrong with him we have a right to know."

Arthur regretted now that he had not shared his painful experience in therapy with Morgana. It was hard to explain exactly how things had gotten where they were between him and Gwaine, and Gwaine and Merlin and him and Merlin. Well it was complicated.

"Oh." Merlin seemed to be giving Morgana's point more credit than Arthur would have guessed. "Well you'd better come in then." He ushered Morgana into the sitting room, taking the little dining chair so that she could commandeer the couch. Arthur took one of the other small chairs. "So I'm glad to hear you say that, actually." Merlin looked between them as if looking for a hint of something. "Not many people really take care of Gwaine." He snorted. "Least of all Gwaine himself."

"So what's wrong? You said there was a time issue?" Morgana's hand was on her purse and she seemed ready to spring from the little settee.

"I don't really know; that's the thing. He has this girlfriend. Well there were other people he's involved with." There was the look between them again. Arthur knew he wasn't sure if Gwaine had been sleeping with both of them. "With Gwaine there are always more people involved. Anyway, they had a little blow up at the club, which I didn't understand to be honest, and now he's sent out a message telling his friends and clients that he's had an emergency and he's moved house and won't be in contact anymore."

"But Gwaine wouldn't do that."

"Oh yes he would." Merlin's face took on a bitter cast for a moment. "Gwaine's disappeared with hardly a word more times than I can count."

"People change." Morgana's eyes had a fierce look. Arthur recognized it as the one that preceded all the times she'd bitten him back when.

"Why don't we all go," he suggested. "Or maybe we should all just let him be if that's what he wants."

"No," Morgana said.

"No," Merlin agreed. "There's something else going on this time. It's not just his itchy feet." He gave Arthur a quelling look. "Gwaine and I grew up together pretty much and as far back as I can remember we've both struggled with one thing or another. And now we're finally doing really well. He's doing something with his life and I've met someone." He smiled at Arthur and Arthur felt his chest warm. " I am not letting him get away with running off this time and ruining everything."

"I brought my car," said Morgana, brandishing her keys. Arthur knew when it was pointless to argue. In three strides he was back in the bedroom, trying to find reasonable clothes. Sadly, nothing of Merlin's seemed to fit him. He buttoned the pink shirt all the way to the top. It was made out of a highly inferior fabric that was already threatening to tear. For the first time that night he really regretted wearing it.

"So where are we going?" He asked. It seemed odd to be trying so hard to find someone he had wanted very much to avoid only yesterday. At the same time he was eager for things to go well. Now that he had Merlin the humiliation Gwaine had caused him seemed like a problem from a long time past. Maybe it wasn't a past he cared to look at in too much detail, but it was ignorable. 

"Left," said Merlin, "and then left again."

"I mean how do you know you're going to find Gwaine, wherever we're going?"

"Oh I don't. No one can disappear like Gwaine can. But he does have this superstitious thing where he likes to check in with a certain person before he goes. It used to be me, " he said. Arthur could tell he was sad and found he was instantly, outrageously jealous, "or my Mum. But it might be Elena, now, so I thought we could stop by there."

The car careened around several corners. Arthur had never liked Morgana's driving and was grateful that at 3 O'clock in the morning there were not many who had to share the road with her.

"There," said Merlin. "This is where we picked her up from. Look there's at least one light on in the building. Do you think that might be her floor?"

"You mean you don't even know her address? Merlin this is simply ludicrous. Why don't you just turn around, Morgana and you can take this idiot back to mine and we'll try to call Gwaine in the morning?"

"Well I don't' see how I was supposed to guess I would need to know exactly where she lived," Merlin said as if he were quite sane and reasonable. "Gwen picked us all up, didn't she? " It was fortunate that he was too cute to strangle because he wasn't really less infuriating than before Arthur loved him. "Hold on. Stop."

Morgana screeched to a halt. She and Merlin had reached a mind meld with an ease that didn't bode well for Arthur's future. "I see him!" Merlin cried. "He must have already been and he's on his way home again. Been bunged out on his ear, mostly likely." Merlin shone a big grin on both of them and Arthur's heart lurched, never having been exposed to that expression before. It was a revelation. "I'll be in touch!" He called over his shoulder, opening the door and throwing himself out of the car before it had quite stopped moving.

"I like him," Morgana said. She opened the door and extended one elegant leg. She was still wearing the heels from their dinner earlier. "Are you coming with?"

"Where are you going?" Arthur was afraid he knew the answer.

"Oh I'm going to have a little talk with this Elena character."

"Oh God no," Arthur breathed. He followed close behind.


	27. Merlin and Gwaine

Gwaine was very absorbed with the action of his feet. They were doing well, marching away with what he was pretty sure was his usual stride. And how was walking supposed to be something you could forget how to do anyway, unless you were in a car accident like Will?

"Gwaine!"

"Merlin?" Merlin's stride was something he could never forget, the way it looked when he was using his legs to make up the speed instead of pumping his arms, not ungainly, on the contrary, just a little too floaty. Gwaine stopped and waited. "How did you find me? Not that I'm not happy to see you."

"I figured out who it was you'd want to have a last look at."

"Ah." Gwaine was able to see Merlin's face now that he was so close. He looked angry. "Well she didn't care to be seen back, you see. So here I am going home."

"Well I don't blame her." Gwaine was shocked at how tight Merlin's voice sounded. They were walking again, their strides marrying nicely out of habit, but it did not feel companionable.

"I guess you're still annoyed with me about the club?"

"No, I'm not annoyed about the fucking club. I don't care about the fucking club." They had come to the entrance of a park again and Gwaine very much wanted to get through to the other side where there would be a tube stop, and an end to the mess of the day. Merlin had other ideas, standing at the gate with his arms crossed. "When were you going to tell me you were leaving?"

Gwaine sighed. He looked at the bench and the wall and the other props where they could sit in cover of darkness. 

"Will you come home with me and talk about it in the morning?"

"I will if you don't leave in the middle of the night without telling me, arsehole."

"All right. Fair enough."

They walked together to the stop, touching their Oyster cards to the card readers at the same time; it was almost ludicrous how easily they fell together, going home. Well no; it wasn't home. Gwaine might be going to sell. He hadn't decided yet.

They had caught one of the last trains of the night. A crowd of uni kids were shouting and pushing each other about, obviously drunk, wearing the beads and glittery top hats from some themed revel or the other. It was almost as good as privacy. Merlin leaned his elbows on his knees. 

"So how long have you been in love with Elena?" 

"I told you when I met her, didn't I?"

"That long? You didn't tell me it was serious."

"Yes, I did. You didn't believe me."

Merlin seemed to deflate and some of the anger left his eyes.

"You're right. I'm sorry G."

"Don't be." Gwaine shrugged. "It wasn't like I'd ever been that way before. You couldn't have known. Anyway, being serious like that was a mistake."

"A mistake?" Merlin whirled around, awake and riled again. "You finally find what you want to do. You stop competing with the slimiest men in London for Slag of the Century and it's a mistake."

At one time it wouldn't have bothered Gwaine to hear Merlin say that. He was out of practice.

"When I was keeping it light, no one got hurt. Everything was my fault, sure, but no one expected anything different."

"I did," Merlin said. 

"You're a special case." Gwaine didn't say he was sorry, as it would have been insulting to both of them to repeat it.

"I found someone, you know, someone who knew he wanted me and only me right from the first time we kissed." Merlin's throat sounded full as if he were speaking past something he had swallowed. "He's sure. No second guessing, no shilly shallying. No passive aggressive cheating just to avoid having a scary conversation. Merlin raised his chin up. "No running away." Gwaine could see tears in his eyes of the vicious variety. They'd known each other a long time and the blow stuck.

"Arthur," he said.

"Yes," Merlin kicked at the floor with his trainers. "Sodding Arthur, after all."

Gwaine found he could all too easily imagine it. Arthur kissing Merlin. Merlin relaxing completely, and finding harbour in that deep chest and the beat of Arthur's heart, the beat too of the regular habits that were Arthur's way, the day to day certainty that he had never gotten the hang of. He remembered the first time he'd kissed Arthur himself, and teased the lover out of hiding. He remembered Arthur's arse in the air and his own cock sliding in and out of him while he made little sweet noises.

"Yes, sodding Arthur," he said. "And I think you'll find he likes to be the soddee well enough, too; if you still like to mix it up, Merlin. At least he did with me."

"Fuck you, Gwaine." 

Merlin pounded Gwaine's arm hard with his fist. It hurt more than it had the last time when they were teenagers and Merlin found out that Gwaine liked boys but not him. Gwaine pushed the fist away.

"It's just a joke." 

"A bad one." Merlin deflated again, but this time it was not with understanding or forgiveness. He looked tired as he had every right to be at this hour, having raced to be here with Gwaine, and after a no doubt rigorous shag with Arthur for hours before that. 

"I'm jealous, Merlin. Don't mind me." Gwaine hoped the effort it took to say the words wouldn't be there in his voice.

"You're jealous? How could you be jealous? You're never jealous."

Gwaine had been jealous quite a bit. He had been jealous of other people's families, of Will's ability to make Merlin happy, of mothers even, these people whose touch had some sticking power his didn't have, to be echoed in every new touch, even after they were gone, while no one regretted him.

The difference was that the old feeling always came with a companion. The rogue friend to his jealousy was sometimes curiosity, sometimes pride or sometimes just movement itself, getting away and finding that jealousy was outside of him and not inside. Now there was nothing distracting him.

"I never used to be. That's the problem with being serious, Merlin. Do you see my point?

"So what, you're jealous of me and Arthur? It's not like you're in love with one of us or anything."

"Elena says I am."

"But you really, really like her. You committed to her. Doesn't she know how exciting and rare that is?" Merlin's anger was no longer directed at him. Gwaine saw his eyes shining with fury on his behalf and it was like the old days. "So what if you fancied Arthur a bit? Who gives a rats arse? I mean you set him up with me for Christ's sake! And it's not like you came to see one of us before you scarpered."

He looked up at Gwaine."I was jealous, too, about that."

"It's nice to be missed." Gwaine would have gone to see Merlin, too, if Elena hadn't said what she had. There was a small silence.

"So I don't get it. What's Elena got on you that has you running?"

"Elena has different expectations from me," he said, trying to explain in a few words that wouldn't start any fires. "I can't go on as I have been and still be a therapist. I have to change some things. She's not wrong."

It's like one of those biscuit tins, he meant to say, where there seem to be all these different kinds and it's very exciting at first trying the pretzel shaped ones or the chocolate dipped ones, but after a while you realize they all taste the same because they've all been made out of the same dough. I'm the dough. And every relationship I have, everyone I touch, it's going to come out the same.

"I just need to get my head on straight again before I deal with people. That scene with Arthur was a wake up call," he said. "And you know I have to leave to get a hold of things. I always have."

Merlin ignored the point about needing to leave. Nor did he ask if Gwaine were in love with him, too. Gwaine supposed the thought hadn't occurred to him.

"Yeah,I get it. You're a bit turned around in your head. People are going to get confused if they sleep together. I could have told you that."

They were walking out of the tube stop now, emerging into their own old neighborhood. Gwaine recognized one man he often saw when he kept these kind of hours, just a typical guy with a brief case except that he always carried an old fashioned red thermos. He wondered if Merlin recognized him, too.

"'Why didn't you," he said.

"Why didn't I what?"

"Why didn't you tell me I was going to get confused and make mistakes."

Merlin skipped a few beats.

"You never told me to drink less, either. I thought we didn't nag each other."

"You knew I always paid attention, though."

"So you thought I wasn't paying attention to you?"

Gwaine let his silence speak for him. Merlin threw his hands in the air, exasperated.

"Excuse me if I was busy, climbing out of a deep depression and doing something with my life finally. I thought you would be proud of me for not hanging on you all the time."

"I was. I am. I just don't find you're taking much notice of anything outside of the flour showers you're always having with Gwen."

"Flower showers? Is that what you're calling what we do?"

"No, Merlin, I.." Merlin interrupted him

"You can't be resentful that we don't have you round more to go over all the trials and tribulations. You were the one who wasn't talking to me! You confide in Elena, apparently. With me It's all polite talk these days." He snorted. "And relationship advice."

It was all too true.

"It's possible that advice about Arthur wasn't my best work." Gwaine conceded. "I'm too protective of you."

"You think?"

The front of their building rose up, looking cleaner and whiter in the glow of the street lights. He busied himself opening the door.

It's alright, you know," Merlin said. "You're talking to me now." 

The half lit stairwell made Gwaine feel a little subdued, as they climbed, like a parakeet with the cover on. Before the simplest answer was to leave, but now it seemed like perhaps the simplest answer was to stay, to ask Merlin to stay again. But it was too late for that.

"So what is it about this girl? Why did you really fall in love this time? What has she got that the rest of us haven't?" Merlin's voice bounced off of the walls, sounding lighter, happier. "I can't believe Gwaine Greene was falling in love and I missed it."

Gwaine looked up to find Merlin smiling again as they reached their landing. He always forgave quickly and Gwaine was grateful for that, content to just watch him for a moment. When Gwaine didn't move, Merlin reached his hand around him and opened the door. "Here let me." He shrugged. "You always leave it unlocked."

They went into the flat. Gwaine felt the urge to hide his bag, there in the foyer, though it was pointless. Merlin already knew he was running off. He turned and made sure that he was looking up into Merlin's face. Was it just a trick of the light or were his eyes a little glittery? He laid his hand on the shoulder that for ten years now had been higher than his.

"I don't care for anyone more than you, Merlin. Not even Elena," he said quietly. "I don't know why I let her kick my arse into gear. I must have her name on tattooed on one of my butt cheeks, somewhere. "

Merlin laughed

"You forget I've had a good look at those. There's nothing there, mate."

Gwaine almost told him then that he was in love with him. It was there, in the quiet. It didn't seem to be a contradiction of any feeling he had for Elena, but just stacked up simply inside him along side other facts. 

Merlin kept grinning and looking around, the fight gone out of him. Maybe he'd had his say. Gwaine watched him and the urge to confess fell away. If he said something that grin would disappear. It was a mistake he realized to hide his own love from himself. That way it didn't do any good. But it felt like a good thing to hold it away from Merlin and his various second chances.

Merlin was taking his time, picking up the Snoopy snow globe he'd left on the table when he moved out, putting it down again. He seemed to be absorbed in what he saw and Gwaine wondered if he was remembering things they'd shared in the space, his wool socks that used to be left right here in the foyer to dry by the heater, so that they stank up the place, midnight drinks in the kitchen, that first croque en Bouche. He let the door slam closed and Merlin jumped in a satisfying manner just like always. He laughed at himself and gave Gwaine a quick kiss on the lips.

"I don't love anyone more than you either, you miserable twat," Merlin said. "Well maybe my Mum, but she's your Mum, too, so it doesn't count."

"I have a great idea, " he added. 

"No, I have a great idea," Gwaine countered. Because that was the next line. "Let's roll out the futon in the lounge and sleep in our pants and wake up and watch telly all day and eat things that leave crumbs. Unless you think Arthur would be jealous?"

"Should Arthur be jealous?"

"Well a bonny arse such as yours is always tempting." He eyed the bit in question while Merlin covered it with two hands.

"Oi! I have a very bony arse and it's taken."

"Ach you know I make no calls on you."

"Even if you thought you could get away with it?"

"Even then." He considered. "Well maybe I might give you a little pinch on occasion."

Gwaine was already pulling down the futon and tossing his outer layers away. He and Merlin made a cocoon under the blankets, as they had countless times before. 

It was wonderful to cuddle up in the familiar smell and shape of Merlin back. Once he wouldhave draped an arm and even a leg over his friend. For now, he made do with resting his forehead on the Merlin's back and his hand on his shoulder. Peace fell over him and he closed his eyes and his mouth, ready for sleep. Merlin, of course, had to speak up.

"G?"

"Yes, make it quick, Merlin. I'm turning to goo here." Gwaine kept his hand on Merlin's shoulder but he lifted his head up.

"I expect something from you, too."

"And what is that?" Gwaine felt a hint of adrenaline threatening to dissolve the thickness of sleep. . 

"You know how I never told my mother about what happened with us?"

"You mean when I let you walk in on me screwing that bottle blonde, the one who was here from the choir, Stewart?" 

"Yeah that." Merlin turned over. "I've noticed that ever since then you haven't been home to visit, apart from Christmas and you missed that once." 

"Mmm." Gwaine knew better to deny anything.

"You're afraid of mum, aren't you?"

"Of course I'm afraid of Hunith." Gwaine exaggerated his laugh, as if he were kidding. He'd hoped Merlin wouldn't notice or that he would give Gwaine a few more years to stop being afraid to meet Hunith's eyes. Apparently he'd thought wrong. "She's bloody terrifying when you're not on the up and up"

"I think she'd be proud of you. I mean you've started a successful practice. She'd like to hear about it."

"I'm sure you've told her something." Gwaine could just see Merlin shrugging, jerking the blanket.

"I think she'd like to hear it from you. She might even be able to talk to you about the sketchy stuff. Mum's pretty open, you know."

Gwaine did know. It was not Hunith's response to his profession that he was worried about.

"That still leaves the other thing, the fact that we had an entire relationship that she never knew about," he whispered. "I know you're not as OK with it as you said or you would have told her yourself." 

These words should have been said a long time ago. Gwaine felt the things now that had refused to feel then and he knew that if Merlin turned around now and asked for anything that he would say yes.

Merlin reached a long hand out and hauled Gwaine's chest towards him. He resisted at first and then plowed forward and accepted the full body hug. Merlin's heart beat frankly on his.

"G.," Merlin said, muffled into his chest, "I've got Arthur now. It doesn't matter anymore." 

"Oh, right."

It hurt. He hadn't expected it to, but there was a long, hard breath that felt like it had glass in it where the air should be. "Sure and I knew there had to be some good point to that," he said and rolled over. But Merlin was not done with him.

"Promise me if you do leave that you'll call Mum and talk to her first. It doesn't have to be about anything in particular. But you can't just go without a word. I won't let you." 

"Hah, you great jug-eared bastard, you don't ask for much do you?"

Gwaine pinched gently over one of the ears in question until Merlin huffed and swatted him off.

So then, going back to Ealdor. Well.

He imagined the delight on Hunith's face as she opened the door to him, what she would have in her hand, how she would stop the washing up for a moment with the rag in the air when he made his confession. That smile might fade. Or it could be she would just listen and never stop quietly putting things away, but then she would turn around and put his tea on the table for him. Or maybe she already knew and just showing up would be confession and forgiveness in one.

"So you need me to talk to Hunith," he said.

"Well, I'm not sure what kind of boyfriend you make, but you've always been a good friend. The best, actually. I got used to it. And I want it to stay that way." Merlin cuddled his head into Gwaine's chest and closed his eyes.

Typically, Merlin then fell asleep,before any repercussions of what came out of his big mouth could catch up with him. 

And Gwaine joined him. Why stay awake? It was probably the last time he would be able to share sleep with Merlin; he might as well enjoy it. Merlin had been doing entirely too much cooking, he decided as he drifted off. He would make the manipulative idiot a huge fry up in the morning before he went on the road.


	28. Foot in the Door

"Well this night has gone tits up," Arthur thought to himself, "again." Instead of staying holed up in bed with Merlin, he was now standing with his sister outside a strange building at three O'clock in the morning, shivering in sweaty jeans and a cheap shirt. 

A voice crackled through the loud speaker next to him.

"Doug is that you? Did you bring the beer?" 

Morgana held up a victory sign. This was the 10th buzzer she had tried.

"I rang the buzzer. Doug's hands are full." Morgana gave a giggle into the speaker that Arthur had never heard before. Should he be concerned that his sister was such a good actress? The buzzer sounded and Morgana pushed the door open with one hand and pulled him in with the other.

"I still don't see why we can't just ring Elena's bell directly," he hissed at her. "Or leave. Leaving would be good."

"She would just ignore us or call the police," Morgana said, "unlike the moron who let us in."

"Ah, so clearly she's going to react well when we show up at her door without ringing the bell first."

Morgana took Arthur by the hand and led him onto the lift and through the hall to Elena's door. It felt odd. Odd and familiar. There was a time when she had dragged him this way quite often. He and she had stood like in front of the director's office in their primary school, once. Morgana was the one to knock because Arthur was too ashamed to admit that the satchel that was found in the girls' loo, emptied and debased, belonged to him. "Fag" it said on it in red sharpie, and "fuck you" and " eat shit."

She had held his hand in hers, once too, when they were running through the corridors of a hospital, although children were not allowed and Uther was bellowing in the waiting room below. They'd been caught almost as soon as they found their mother's room.

"Morgana stop." 

She whirled around, lifting her long, black coat like wings around her. He was reminded of the crow in an old fable he read once. In the story there was a crow that pecked and bullied a tiny donkey. The donkey obeyed the crow for ever after, despite growing many times as large.

"We can't just wake up this poor woman at 3 in the morning," he said, all the more irritated as he realized that if she was the crow in the fable, that made him the ass. "We can't just barge in there and harangue her about her relationship with our therapist. It's rude. It's beyond rude. It's barmy, actually."

"Nobody said you had to come,". 

He looked pointedly at their joined hands. She sighed and let go.

"Sorry. It's just I know that there are some people you have to catch at the right moment or it's too late. Gwaine's like that, I'm sure. I'm like that myself. He's not just going to quit this girlfriend, he's going to quit town, quit his work, quit us."

"Quit us? Don't you think that sounds a bit pathetic, Morgana?" Professionals did not have these kinds of obligations, even if he had been stupid enough to think so, showing up with his lava lamp.

"LIsten: I haven't really quizzed you about what you do with Gwaine, Arthur. Or talked about what I did with him because It would be really awkward, wouldn't it? It's not like you can handle a simple kiss on the cheek or a hand squeeze without going quietly atomic."

"Hey, I'm better now."

"Yes, you are." 

Morgana looked him in the eyes, not much of a feat, thanks to her heels and Arthur felt sweaty and squirmy.

"I know you made zero to no effort to fix up your problems before I found Gwaine for you, Arthur, but I saw a lot of people. A lot of people. And Gwaine was the only one who really reached me. It wasn't because he was talented. A lot of those people were talented. It wasn't because he cared. There were a few who really did. He broke rules. He broke barriers. And he became my friend."

That certainly explained some things. Like why Gwaine seemed to know more about Morgana's relationship with Leon than he did. It did not explain the felony currently underway.

"OK so Gwaine's a friend, " he conceded. "Friends move house and change jobs all the time. How is it any business of ours? Merlin is already looking for Gwaine. Let him worry about the crisis at 3 AM. I don't think I owe him that."

"You don't?" Morgana snapped her coat around her ankles. "Because I sure don't remember you showing up half dressed and covered with love bites anytime in the last ten years, or ever. Nor do I remember you looking smug as a twice fed cat after a date before. Tell me that Gwaine didn't give you that. Tell me Gwaine didn't give you Merlin."

Arthur squeezed his eyes shut, wishing fervently that he was somewhere else. Morgana took his silence as an opportunity to go on. "In any case, I know it never occurred to you to ask how he was doing now and then. But I did. He told me a bit about what he did before moving to London and why he decided to open the practice."

She watched him and he refused to acknowledge it, staring at the floor.

"It took guts to do what Gwaine did and he might not be able to start up again anywhere other than London. I'm not going to let him lose everything he's built and disappear from our lives just when they've gotten enjoyable. This woman seems to be the lever that moves him, so this woman is the person we're going to knock up"

Morgana raised her fist above the door.

"Wait, Morgana!" She turned back with an eyebrow raised. "I don't think you understand what happened between me and Gwaine. It wasn't like what he did with you." Arthur took three breaths trying to get oxygen out of one of them. "We slept together," he said, his words accompanied by the deepest, foulest blush of his life.

"So? I came on to him at least 12 times before I finally gave up. That's what a sex therapist is for."

Arthur looked at his sister with awe. 

"You just don't feel shame, do you? I mean embarrassment, feeling exposed just doesn't happen for you."

"It isn't always a virtue, you know." She turned away with her hand raised up to knock and he grabbed it and pulled her back around.

"But Morgana, you don't understand. The fight with Gwaine she had -it was about me." Finally, Morgana unfisted her hand and Arthur was able to breathe a sigh of relief. "I liked Gwaine, too, but for me it wasn't just friendship. I asked him out and he wasn't..." Arthur's voice trailed off as he attempted to describe what exactly it was about Gwaine's reaction had slammed doors between them. "He wasn't gentle. He didn't take his time with me. When I saw him with Merlin at the club, I thought he was dating his other patients but not me and I ended up screaming at him in front of Elena. That's why she got angry at him and that's why she ran off."

"That doesn't sound like you, Arthur." 

"As you pointed out,, Gwaine got me to places no one ever has before. Great, isn't it?" 

He felt a tremor of his old hurt and behind it some of what he felt when he was with Gwaine before, why he'd asked him out in the first place. 

"But it doesn't sound like him, either." Morgana frowned, genuinely puzzled. "Gwaine was incredibly careful with me."

"Gwaine was really good with me too up to that point. I really trusted him, as well. I don't know what went wrong."

"Well," she added, "what did he say in your next appointment?"

"I didn't go to the next appointment."

"What?"

"I skipped it. I couldn't bear to look him in the face."

"And yet you screamed in his face like an hysteric when you saw him again?" Arthur didn't like that phrase, but Morgana ignored his pout. 

"Honestly, Arthur, going back and talking it over was the hard work and you avoided doing it. You can hardly blame Gwaine for your cowardice." She twisted the door knob and shook the door. "Now I really want to have a talk with Elena. What did she think she was doing fighting about you? What business is it of hers?"

"Oh I don't know. Maybe it was her business because I was sleeping with her boyfriend?"

"But she had to know what he did for a living, Arthur, or he wouldn't care that much."

"Well maybe she thought she was OK with it and then when I started in on Gwaine she realized she would be running into people he's seen naked absolutely everywhere and she hopped it." Arthur was pretty sure he would have felt that way, if he and Gwaine had started dating.

"Nonsense. There's something else going on and I'm going to find out what it is."

Morgana had always had the ability to saturate everything around her with her own point of view, so that no other way even seemed possible. There was no one who could persuade her to listen, unless it was Arthur himself. If only there was someone else that knew her, someone sane and reasonable. 

Morgana was peering in the spy hole when Arthur started scrolling down his mobil for a very new number.

"I'm ringing Leon."

"What? You can't do that. You can't phone Leon on me!" The swish of Morgana's coat as she turned around lacked some of the old authority.

"Of course, I can. He's going to be my brother, isn't he?"

Arthur could not help the grin that crossed his face. It was so rare that he outmaneuvered Morgana. "If you describe the situation and he agrees that it makes sense, I will be happy to continue." Arthur handed her the phone. "Here. Be my guest."

Morgana seemed to fold away some extra part of herself that had leant her height, like a mantilla. She ignored the mobil phone.

"Oh fine," she huffed, "Have it your way."

"I thought there was no way forward but through this door?"

"There isn't, but Leon's another one like you. He can't imagine making any decision all at once, like that!" She struck one palm up against the other in an alarming fashion. "He can make it up to me by driving us to the airport later. Merlin will be sure to have a good guess where Gwaine's gone by then." She gave raised a brow at Arthur and he recalled that this ringing the significant other business could go both ways. "You know there's a chance he'll have talked Gwaine round, anyway. Why don't you give him a ring, Arthur?"

Arthur opened his mouth and a voice spoke.

"You know I'm up now. You talk so loud. You all may as well come in."

Elena had snuck up on Arthur midargument once again. He hoped she wouldn't be appearing everywhere like the Spanish Inquisition for the rest of his life. With the way things had been changing, Arthur reflected, with all the separate bits of his life mixing together all the time, he couldn't really rule it out.

The woman in the doorway was not the spit fire he remembered. She was not draped in clingy red fabric and, despite her position as home owner facing intruders, she did not seem anywhere near as intimidating as she had at the club. Just a young blonde woman, and not very tall.

"Er...those are very cute bunny rabbit pajamas," Arthur said and then smacked his head with his hand. "Christ I'm exhausted. I'm sorry, Elena. I have no business here."

"It's alright. I couldn't sleep anyway. Must have been too much coffee." She sniffed and Arthur could see that she had a cold or perhaps she had been crying. "Anyway, the guy across the hall is a crank and he's always home, I'd rather deal with you than have him come out and yell." When she turned around a little cotton bunny tail twitched on her read end. Arthur and Morgana met eyes and attempted to suppress the same laugh.

"Arthur, meet my couch." Elena smiled a tired version of a grin. "It's quite comfy and Morgana..."

"How do you know I'm Morgana?"

There was a long, long pause.

"I figured you must be. I read the letter you wrote Gwaine. Both your letters." She looked them both in the eyes, suddenly alert. "I"m sorry. I never thought I would actually meet you. I hope...that is I hope it doesn't bother you that much."

"Why yes, it does," Arthur thought to himself, "And no we do not need to discuss it because I am going to go to Merlin's tomorrow where I will get shagged silly and forget to think about this crap."

"That depends," said Morgana, "on what you plan on doing about Gwaine."

The women walked into what sounded like the kitchen. Arthur did not follow them. He did not need to listen. Unlike Morgana, he did not need to know everything. The couch looked very inviting indeed and Arthur curled his frame between the arms of it and dozed off, only to be awoken by bursts of sound, penetrating his peace a few minutes later.

"What do you mean that isn't proof someone's afraid to commit?" Elena's voice carried over the walls and was followed by Morgana's murmuring. Morgana was a ruthless negotiator and Elena should never have admitted to owing her an apology.

He was tempted to call Merlin, just to confirm that he existed. Somewhere outside of all this madness, he had someone who was his. Well sort of outside all this madness. Arthur sighed. Merlin was Gwaine's oldest friend, practically family. Perhaps he should do something, after all. 

His fingers idled over the phone buttons. Would it be fair to call Leon? He thought of his sister's flat and Leon's plate there, next to Arthur's. He considered this new person, who had as if by magic become one of his family, and who had ignored Arthur's suspicion and discomfort about that fact and returned nothing but good humor. There was this man who loved his sister, who had spun softer, sweeter years for the future out of her past.

What would be the point of having Leon haul Morgana off? He was supposed to be on Morgana's side, not Arthur's henchman.

In any case, Morgana was wasting her time badgering Elena. The logical thing would be to go to the source of the problem and that was Gwaine himself. Gwaine himself and, somehow, Arthur. ....

Arthur allowed some of his recent feelings for his therapist to leak out of the very tight box he'd put them in. Did Arthur want Gwaine to go? 

Arthur ground his teeth to the hideous, squeaking sound of some inner mechanism parting and revealing the memories he had of Gwaine. He remembered the turn of his head, releasing the scent of his hair. He remembers finding the gesture and the man himself obnoxious and then coming to trust and finally to like him. He remembered the desire he'd felt for Gwaine's body and how easy it was to laugh in his presence. He wanted Gwaine to be close still. It was just awkward to think about it, so he didn't.

What a very high price he had put on preserving the unawkward, the peace on the inside of his brain, where the wrong thoughts were blacked out as soon as they intruded. It was not just one thing. There were the years he was alone, the comfort he'd withheld from his sister, the words he couldn't say to his father.

And now this friend he couldn't be bothered to keep. Apparently, Arthur was happy to turn his back on someone he cared for, once it got difficult.

Morgana thought Gwaine was like her, but perhaps he was also a little like Arthur, too, in that.

"But what if I'm not comfortable with an open relationship!" Elena's voice and the thunking of her mug on the table, were definitely getting louder.

He would have to ring Gwaine and figure it out together. Then maybe Gwaine would realize he was a git and come back home. Arthur sighed. Making this happen was about as appealing as removing his eye teeth.

Once again, as he had that day so many months ago, Arthur sweat as he poised his fingers over the keys.


	29. Gwaine and Elena

"Gwaine."

"Hmm?"

"Your mobil's ringing."

"Let it ring." Gwaine snuggled back into the covers. It had been so long since anyone had been in this bed with him' he'd forgotten how warm it could be.

"Lazy bastard. I don't know why I was afraid you were going to get a flight somewhere. I doubt you could get out the door."

Merlin reached out a long arm and snagged the offending device.

"Hullo, Gwaine's mobile mobil. Can I take a message?" His attempt to sound perky was warped by sleep and a fold of the blankets.

"Arthur? Is that you?" Merlin said, followed by a pause, and then.

"No. He didn't leave his mobil behind. After keeping us up all night the rotten bugger's asleep."

Gwaine experienced a revolution of sorts. His body, always smarter than the rest of him, woke immediately. Arthur's here! He thought next and as he was reaching for his mobil, he was glad. I would love to have him and Merlin here together, he thought, still fuzzy. It's too bad Elena probably wouldn't like it.

Elena. Gwaine's brain woke, too, at that point. Elena was gone, but unfortunately her judgements lingered after her. No lovers till he unwrapped himself from Merlin. No working till he separated himself off from Arthur.

"I'll take the phone, Merlin," he said. When Merlin attempted to pull it away from him he growled and Merlin flopped back down on the bed, gave him the finger and rolled over.

"Hey Arthur, " he said, as if he were not in his underpants. Gwaine had had a lot of practice with that. "I am glad you called. I'm sure it wasn't easy for you."

On the other end Arthur sounded nervous, the way he had the first few times they met.

"I'm afraid I owe you for the last appointment," Arthur said. "I never called and cancelled."

"Jesus Arthur. You're going to talk to me about money? After what happened the last time I saw you?"

"I'm sorry about that, too," Arthur said, his voice as stiff and formal as only he knew how, "I have no idea what came over me."

"I think I have a pretty good idea," Gwaine said.

"Well then why didn't you call me?" Arthur sighed. "Sorry." Arthur's voice on the phone waxed and waned with emotion and it was frustrating not to be able to see his face.

"Could you turn on face time, Arthur? Arthur?"

"Fine. Hold on." An unflattering image of Arthur consisting mostly of his nose swung into view. "I really don't like these things. It's very distracting knowing you look like a beast."

Gwaine grinned. It was good to hear Arthur's particular brand of wingeing again.

"So you think we need to talk."

"Er...yes." Arthur winced distinctly. "Listen, I'm calling from Elena's"

Arthur swept the camera around and Gwaine got a warped view of the couch and telly and the Klee prints that he had been looking at only a few hours ago, while Elena told him she never wanted to see him again.

He got up and started pulling on his jeans; something told him he might have to move soon.

"What are you doing there?"

"Well, currently, I'm listening to Morgana blackmailing Elena into dating you again. At least that's my best guess. They're in the kitchen and I only hear the loud bits."

"Why and how is Morgana doing that?" Gwaine balanced his phone on the dresser as he pulled a shirt over his head. "Not that I'm not grateful."

"Are you?" Arthur's eyes widened. "Well, I wouldn't get my hopes up. I think Morgana's missed the point. She seems to think that Elena owes us because you showed her the tesitmonials we wrote you."

The testimonials.

"Oh God, Arthur. I'm sorry."

"Yeah, well. Anyway, I have to give you credit. You've won Morgana's loyalty. I think she loves you more than me to tell the truth. And she's decided Elena's chased you out of the country or something. Wants her to take you back. You're not planning on skipping town because of some row with a girlfriend, are you Gwaine?"

Gwaine caught himself trying to fidget with the phone cord. He hadn't spoken on a phone with a cord since he was a teenager in Hunith's outdated kitchen.

"Well, it's something like that, yes."

"Bull crap."

"What?" Despite getting dressed, Gwaine was pretty confident he could skate over the top of this conversation with Arthur and go back to bed. He did owe it to Arthur to explain why he'd left so soon after the heady sex they'd had. But he'd quit. So he didn't owe that anymore. Not when Arthur was so happy with Merlin. But now he seemed to have underestimated Arthur's nerve.

"I said that's a load of bollocks. You wouldn't run off for something piddley like that." Well at least Arthur rated his courage. Gwaine was glad about that. "Something happened at the club and it wasn't about Elena; it was about me, or me and Merlin."

"Right then. I suppose you want to know the truth."

"Not really." Arthur's voice, posh and amused, unleashed an urge to snarl Gwaine did not expect. "Are you growling at me? After everything you...? OK fine.. To be fair, yes. I did want to know. I was...well humiliated, really is the best word, after I tried to ask you out and you ignored me. Didn't want to see you again. Actually, I'm not enjoying talking about it now."

Arthur's voice had taken on the gasping raspy quality of someone who can't inhale. His color had deepened. He had probably swum miles beyond his comfort zone, and for what? 

"Arthur, why did you want to talk to me?"

Arthur looked rumpled and red faced, obviously cringing with embarrassment.

"I heard you were going to leave. Morgana and I, we...well we don't want you to go. We've gotten a bit fond of you, you see. I thought if I was what chased you off, maybe I could get you to stay."

He laughed a rough laugh.

Gwaine's heart sang a little bit. Arthur was fetching him home, in his own awkward way.

"I've gotten fond of you two as well". Gwaine sighed. "Look It's completely understandable you didn't want to talk to me before. There should have been a long debriefing after we slept together and after you asked me out and there wasn't."

There was no sound from Arthur. Gwaine took that as acceptance and pushed on. "And you're right that my leaving has to do with you." 

Gwaine ran his hand through his hair and pulled it, hard. The sensation brought tears to his eyes and a tart, centered feeling.

"I avoided you because I wanted to accept your offer."

"You wanted to say yes?" 

"Trust me, If it weren't for Elena we would be in Cuba right now, fucking each other's brains out."

Arthur grinned and rolled his eyes to hide it.

"Think a lot of yourself do you, Gwaine."

"I think a lot of you."

There was an awkward pause. Gwaine watched Arthur grimace,and had no doubt he was thinking of Merlin and realizing for the first time how soon after being naked with Gwaine he had been with his best friend.

"But there was Elena."

"Yes, there was and I tried to keep everything separate. You know, with her in one box and you in another, but the Truth will I out I guess. She figured out I wanted you and told me I was a shit therapist and a crap date, too." 

Gwaine could hear in his own voice that those words still smarted. "And she was right and that's why I decided to quit. I have to start over."

"You weren't a crap therapist." Arthur squeezed his eyes as if the compliment required coordination he didn't have, like people who stuck out their tongue when they threaded a needle. "I was a coward. I should have come to the next appointment. I never gave you a chance. Morgana said it. You'd always answered my questions before. I acted like you were someone who wouldn't do that, someone else, like...."

"Like your father, maybe?"

Arthur's face soured.

"That is insightful. Have you ever thought of doing therapy work?"

And like that, Gwaine knew they were friends again.

"I guess since you won't come into the office I can't charge you for that comment," he snickered.

"Shut it, Gwaine." Arthur glowered a fake glower, but like other fake expressions in Gwaine's experience, it quickly brought real emotions to match.

"So where does Merlin factor into this?" Arthur added a bunched fist to the narrowed eyes. Images flashed through Gwaine's mind of an alternative reality where they fought over Merlin, knives out. He wondered who would have won.

"Oh Arthur, you know when people make mistakes they make the same one over and over again."

Arthur, truculent pout in place, refused to help him out here. Fine. It wasn't even hard to say it anymore. Gwaine had never been shy.

"I'm not the first person to fall in love with their best friend and I won't be the last. But I want Merlin to be happy despite what I said at the club and I won't stand in your way." Arthur nodded, tight and Gwaine sighed. He really preferred Arthur relaxed. "I'd like you to be happy,too, you know." 

"You want me to be happy?" Arthur looked over his shoulder. "Come back home and go to Morgana's engagement party. None of us will get any peace until you're there."

This time they laughed together, Arthur leaning his head so far back that his mouth dominated the screen and Gwaine had the satisfaction of knowing he had made Arthur look like a frog. He decided that he would stay, after all. It was easier than leaving, wasn't it?

They were still chuckling when a third voice chimed in.

"You're in love with me?"

Gwaine turned towards the sound of Merlin's voice and his face time window filled with Merlin's bare torso and the rumpled bed. Arthur's voice squawked in his ear.

"Is that Merlin in bed with you there? Naked?"

Inexplicably Gwaine began to laugh again, and a knot fell loose inside him. There was nothing left to expose.

"Don't go anywhere," he told a seething Arthur, who seemed to be beyond words, but not beyond a lot of heavy breathing, "I'm going to hand the phone to Merlin and then I'm going to Elena's."

Gwaine Greene was not a man ideally suited for monogamy. He was, however, free of secrets and his promises meant something again.

* * *

When he got to Elena's the sun was climbing up the horizon and bringing a lot of bird tweeting with it. He found parking easily, always an excellent sign, and hopped out of his Camaro, whistling along to the sounds of Spring.

Why did he feel so certain he was going to come out tops? Gwaine couldn't say, but his instincts all told him so. It was very hard to feel fear until half way up in the lift when he realized he couldn't imagine what Elena's face would say.

By the time he was waiting for her steps, his heart was pounding faster than he liked to admit. What a relief to have her open the door and see her just standing there, watching him walk down the hall to her, her face neither happy, nor sad, but attentive like someone watching birds at a feeder.

"You came back," she said down the hall. 

"I'm too exhausted to pretend that I'm not happy to see you," she added, when he had arrived finally and kissed her cheek like someone at a party.

Unlike someone at a party, she was wearing baby blue pajamas with little bunny ears on it and matching bunny slippers.

"Christ Elena, why don't you warn a person before you put those things on. You're so cute, it's a sin."

He wrapped his arms around her. His hand brushed something unexpected.

"Wait? Is that a bunny tail?"

"You gave up the right to feel the tail!" Despite her words, Elena swayed deeper into Gwaine's arms. "God I'm knackered."

He was tired, a little, too. Too tired to tell the requisite joke, although it did flash through his mind that there was a time when he was always allowed to touch the bunny tail.

He held her again, feeling the strain leak out of her body. When she was completely relaxed, he looked in her eyes.

"I've dealt with Arthur and Merlin. It's all in the open now. "

"Oh That's good." 

She opened her mouth and he prepared for a repeat of all the many reasons why he couldn't be hers.. "You know what, though? I'm tired of thinking about them." Exhaustion had made her languid. She moved back in an uncharacteristically graceful slow motion to look at him again. "There was this guy I met once. He asked when I was going to think about me. I didn't think much of it then. But now I think he might have had a point."

"Are you sure he wasn't trying to get in your pants?"

"It might have looked that way, but I think he was just pointing out something I needed to hear." She blew her hair out of her eyes. "So what do you think?"

Gwaine took her hand and went down on one knee. It was like the best kind of role play, when the character makes you more yourself instead of more like someone else. He felt unbreakable, looking up into her lovely face, with the fine hair sticking to her mouth and her grey eyes wide on his.

"I love you Elena Stewart, and I don't care if I also love a couple of other people. You might and I can respect that, but I'm not going to pretend I don't have any thing to offer you because I'm offering you everything."

"Oh." She sniffled. "That 's really nice, actually. Do you mind if we sit down? I don't think I can stand up again without more coffee."

Gwaine hopped smartly to his feet and led her to the couch, the one that Arthur had just called him from. He looked around for him, but he seemed to have vanished without a trace, probably to run over to Gwaine's own flat to check Merlin for fingerprints.

"Did you just say OK? I thought I was going to have to work a lot harder than this just to get in the door."

"Oh the door. Pfft. Everyone just walks in now. Why should you be any different?" He was sitting now too and Elena cuddled next to him and rested her head on his shoulder. "I must be insane because everything you just said made me feel wonderful."

"I've been trying to tell you how good I could make you feel, all this time," Gwaine pointed out.

"Of course everything sounds sweet compared to the soul searching I've gone through with Morgana Pendragon. It's like being sent through a pasta maker." She squeezed her hair into two blonde ponytails. "Gah! I have no idea how Morgana tricked the buzzer. She's really rather formidable. I can't believe I ever felt sorry for her. Not that I don't like her. I do. I think."

"Where is Morgana now?"

"Out, getting breakfast for us." Elena waved a floppy hand, "I think she said she was going to bring her brother and Merlin back here."

"Oh no, just when I have you to myself and your defenses are down, that lot are going to show up?"

"I thought you loved that lot. I thought it was all the more the merrier." Elena frowned her eyes at him, but it was a fake out. Her body stayed soft on his. "Morgana said I did you what she calls a huge injustice, assuming that you have no integrity because you loved more than one person at a time."

"That sounds like Morgana. We talked about some things. I guess she figured me out faster than I figured me out."

"So that's what you are, a polyamorist?"

"If you like. I'm not fond of labels. Don't roll your eyes at me. Some of us like to live outside the Petri dish." He watched her find the comparison annoying and captured her hand, so small in his and a little cold. He rubbed it a bit to warm it up. "I like you, Elena. I like who I am when I'm with you much better than the guy I was with any one else. Those other feelings, what came up for me in therapy with Arthur, what I feel for Merlin...I don't know."

"You don't know?"

"I'm sorry, Elena. I don't know."

"Do you think you can be faithful to me?"

Gwaine paused to give this question the reflection it deserved this time. 

"I don't see why not. Except for the therapy. It would be a lot easier if you agreed to do that part with me."

"I might, in some distant future contemplate a polyamorous relationship if I really really liked all the participants." She held a hand up. "Don't get your hopes up; I mean that as a purely hypothetical, I'm just as likely as be abducted by aliens scenario, but I am positive I would not like to have sex with my patients."

Gwaine felt himself put out, a bit. He would have liked to have this, too.

"But you would have been so good!" He pouted. "You shouldn't have mixed up my therapy business with the right to court you," He might have been able to work on her later then. 

"But that was your idea!"

"I have a lot of bad ideas. It doesn't mean we have to follow any of them."

"I know."

She looked at him, up sideways, narrowing her eyes till the roundness disappeared.

"Except I have to admit...."

"You have to admit?" Oh Gwaine liked the sound of this; yes, he did.

"What you did for me, the way you changed your life." Elena shrugged. "It's romantic. Don't tell anyone I used that word." She squished her face back up again but he could tell she was hiding a smile..

"Elena, do you think we could go to bed?"

"Just to sleep?"

There was a time, not so long ago when Gwaine would have said yes and then wheedled his way into more and more yes territory until the final sex before brunch.

"No. I'd like to talk to you and then I'd like to lie with you." He threaded his hand through the fall of her hair. So fine, no wonder it blew everywhere. She closed her eyes in the pleasure of it and he lifted his hand again to gentle cradle her cheek. Her eyes opened for him. " if that's what seems right."

"So we'll just see what happens?"

Gwaine had a pretty good idea what would happen. 

"Yes."

Elena kissed him first, her mouth somewhere between open and closed, firm and undecided, but so soft. It was the only time he could remember that the break the boundaries friend to lovers touch was initiated by someone else. Gwaine hadn't been a virgin anything for a very long time. "I'll be damned," he thought, pulling her towards him by the convenient hand hold of her waist so that she sighed into his mouth and pressed harder. "This right here, it's my very first kiss."


	30. Epilogue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Leon's family-the bevy of scientist brothers and the rambling old house were all inspired by Oliver Sacks' family. So a little random perhaps, but I wanted to land our orphans someplace nice.

If Arthur Pendragon used to lie, just a teeny bit about what kind of excellent, Spartan habits he had developed as a corporate warrior, it was about sleeping in. He didn't arrive late, of course, but Morgana knew that he often hit the snooze button more than once before staggering out of bed in a state of nature, unable to remember things like socks and nose tweezers. She had a just in case carton that she kept in his boot for him, so that he could transform en route into something civilized.

Now it was his secret pleasure to wake early. 

The early morning was his Merlin watching time. Arthur liked seeing the first sun irritate Merlin's face, so that he twitched and turned away. He liked watching the chestnut come out in his dark mop and the pink come out in his pale skin. Waking before the dawn was even better; he got to relive the eradication of his loneliness, as the sun revealed Merlin lying there after all.

And of course, if Merlin woke too, there was enough time to make love.

This morning they were both late and Arthur was finding it hard to keep to his agenda.

"You've just showered," Merlin was saying. "You know I like to suck the all the drops off. Please, let me do it before you get all dry and ruin it?

Merlin hadn't just showered. His hair stuck up against the grain and he smelled more like himself than anything else, just the way Arthur liked him best and also not what Morgana would expect at her engagement party. Arthur looked at the clock. 9 O'clock. They had to leave in 15 minutes.

"Alright. Fine. You'll be the death of me. I swear."

"Prat. As if it was such a chore getting your cock sucked."

Merlin smiled up at him from the bed. Arthur ran his hands through the comb choking hair, pretending to groom him, enjoying the weight of Merlin's head resting in his hands.

His heart picked up as Merlin's long fingers paused a moment at the knot in his towel. They pulled down and Arthur's cock sprang up, filling quickly. Arthur liked seeing it now because Merlin so obviously did, groaning as he sucked up the drops of water at the tip of it and licked the ones on Arthur's hips and his waist.

"Let's just say we'll be late," Merlin said, hoovering up something at the top of Arthur's thigh. "I've just remembered how nice it is to rim you first. You get all shirty trying to deny you want it and then you say the sweetest things." He cupped his hand around Arthur balls and reached a curious finger back.

"Can't do that. Too much time. Morgana will scream."

"Text," Merlin said, starting to suck in earnest now, every other pull, when he wasn't breaking the lock with that smile that had become Arthur's favorite. "Defer the agony."

"Oh fuck there is no such thing as agony." Arthur held Merlin's head more firmly too him and began to thrust gently. "Not when you're doing that."

Arthur made lots of noise when he came. He always did now. Merlin said how much he enjoyed it, that he had never known anyone so vocal in bed and Arthur tried to take the compliment without asking who the other people were so that he could go out and murder them while Merlin was at his mum's.

He really shouldn't have those thoughts, especially since Gwaine was a good friend and poor Will was already dead.

Merlin licked his lips and rested his cheek on Arthur's thigh.

"Alright. Let's go."

"What?" Arthur refused to look at the clock. It was 9:30. "I"m not going to just leave you like that."

"It's OK, Arthur. It's not like taking turns at a board game." He started pulling things off of hangers.

Arthur stood behind him and placed a hand on Merlin's cock,which was still hard.

"This doesn't belong at a garden party. And neither do any of these things." He yanked Merlin's dubious wardrobe choices out of his hands.

"But what about poor Gwen. She's only just got to know everyone. I can't just leave her to the wolves, Arthur."

Gwen had met Arthur's friend Lance at one of Morgana's dinner parties and they gotten together almost immediately and just like that both halves of their worlds had zipped up into one.

"Oh that's an easy save." Arthur leaned over to the dresser where he'd left his mobil, well aware that he was offering the line of his back and tipping his arse up as temptation. "I'll just text Lance and warn him to bring her a little late. Lance and I go way back and he won't ask questions."

When Arthur arrived at Leon's family's suburban home, he was slightly sore and very happy. Merlin next to him looked innocent and adolescent, as usual, a good fit for this neighborhood of trees and lanes and over large gardens and far too many playing fields.

Arthur felt like the whore of Babylon, but he'd long accepted that he looked just as polished as ever on the outside. The strange double feeling was all that was left of his old anxiety and he accepted he'd probably never be free of it.

"Arthur, Merlin, you're here. Marvelous!"

It was Morgana who answered the door, just as Arthur feared, wearing a rose silk something in which she looked beautiful and formal. It reminded him for a moment of how she had been as a little girl, presented for company. 

"Are we still welcome? I know we're a little late."

She stood in the doorway refusing to smile for a fraction of a second and then seemed to melt a bit.

"Actually, I've just discovered that in large families no one notices if you're not there. It's very liberating." 

"Anyway," she continued, leading them through a rambling house out into a large garden patio that was set with a number of loosely collided tables. "We need your sporting skills. Elena is creaming everyone at all the games and the boys are starting to sulk."

She pointed across the lawn where there was a curvy blonde woman wearing something with a large number of flowers on it, prancing around, performing what Arthur supposed was a victory dance with a croquet mallet. There were a number of other people, all of them men, crouching around pointing at a colorful cluster of croquet balls. Their air on dejection was obvious even from a distance. Arthur recognized Lance, who must have come early after all, but he didn't know the others.

"Is she singing?"

"I think it's the fighting song from her old school. It doesn't help that Gwaine is egging her on."

Arthur squinted in the sun and spotted Gwaine sitting on a bench. He was clapping the off beat to Elena's dance and laughing like a loon. 

Arthur looked at Merlin who, so far from looking annoyed, beamed back.

"Aren't they cute? I'm so glad it worked out with them. I'm going to take a picture." While he busied himself with his mobil, Arthur whispered to his sister,.

"I see exactly what you mean, Morgana. Don't worry. It won't be the first time I've trounced Gwaine and Elena at a pick up game."

"Just a minute, Arthur."

To Arthur's irritation, she was not looking at him but at Merlin. This happened more and more lately, as if the two of them communicated in some faster code before translating for him. "I'd just like you to say hi, to Leon first and maybe you two can talk to his brothers about teams or what have you."

Arthur had expected there to be some work at the engagement party. There was at every merger, wasn't there? He was resigned to it..

"Well, a I spy the man right there where there seems to be some lemonade. Shall we go say hi, Merlin?"

Morgana started to say something and then stopped, eyes over where Leon was pouring. She was nervous, Arthur thought. He wondered how he would feel hosting a party with Hunith, whom he'd never met. By all accounts she was harmless, but then that's what everyone said about Gwen.

"Could you get me a white wine while you're over there, Arthur?," Morgana interrupted his thoughts," And don't forget to talk to Leon's parents. They're going to be my parents, too, you know. Isn't that bizarre?" She looked slightly panicked for a moment.

"They're lucky to have you, Morgs." Arthur gave her a kiss on the cheek and squeezed her shoulder. She still looked a little surprised when he did these things, but he was glad to see the panic recede. 

The garden was quite unusually large. Morgana had said something about people in Leon's family being doctors on both sides; all the family were scientific in one way or the other.perhaps someone in there had done some sort of lucrative surgery or invented a widget.

He scanned the older generation and figured that the woman with the greying bob and the wrap around skirt was probably Leon's mother. The man next to her was very tall but also a bit more round shouldered. He would talk to them later, he decided, after he'd talked to Leon and braced for a bit of liquid courage.

"Do you want me with you when you talk to the in laws?" Merlin asked.

"Why wouldn't I?" 

Merlin shrugged. His eyes were not as frank as usual and his smile looked cynical for him.

"Maybe for the first impression you might prefer to be alone?"

Arthur had gradually come to admit that Merlin really was a nicer person than he was. That meant that he often saw tiny fault lines of obligation that Arthur didn't, which Arthur found confusing. Sometimes he worked himself up a bit and had to be saved from himself. Arthur reisisted the urge to smack him on the head.

"Don't be silly, Merlin, I know you're a bit clumsy, but why wouldn't I want us to present together? As long as we stay away from the drinks table before you start waving your arms about, it will be fine." 

"Oh Arthur." Merlin had that bemused look that Arthur had mixed feelings about, the look with the little bit of the Arthur is an idiot to it. "Look I'm going to go over and say hi to Gwaine and then we can reconvene after and you can tell me all about your new family."

Arthur watched his retreating back, watched Gwaine hop off the bench to greet him. They hugged for just long enough that it could be called snuggling. He told himself so hard and so often that he wasn't jealous of Gwaine that it was hard to tell anymore if it was true or not. While he was wondering which it was this time, the lads at the croquet game unbent themelves and the three strangers formed a straight line, awkwardly standing while Elena and Gwen and even Lance ran at Merlin for a hug or kiss.

They were brothers Arthur saw, now that they were arrayed like that. All three had a bit of Leon's shaggy, lanky look to them, though one was much taller and another somewhat stouter than his new brother-in-law.

Would he like these people? Would they come to be family to him? He had no doubt that they would join the crowd around Merlin in time. Arthur had been teasing when he pretended to find Elena annoying, but it was true that he couldn't imagine anyone disliking Merlin. The dislike he'd felt himself, that first moment they met at the club, had faded from memory along with his migraines. He rarely got those anymore.

"Hey Arthur!" A voice called out across the lawn. He turned to see Elena, standing next to Gwaine, her mallet held high. "How about you and Merlin against me and Gwaine," she shouted, "longest average shot wins?"

That would be a disaster. Merlin was blind as a bat and could also be easily sabotaged by anyone who got him to laugh while he took aim.

"Lance," he called out, "Don't let anyone start anything till I get back. That means you, too, Gwaine!"

Gwaine blew him a kiss and flipped him the bird, which just about summed up their relationship, he supposed.

"Come back now, Pendragon, or I think you're afraid Elena will beat you!"

Elena would never beat him, but Morgana had to be appeased and in-laws had to be met.

"Merlin!" He cried, unwilling to say any of that outloud. Merlin looked up and understood everything. He aimed his smile up at what must have been a vaguely Arthur like blur and Arthur felt the grin pop out on his own face. "I'm just getting a drink," he shouted. "I'll be back."

Leon was at the table, already pouring out wine when he got there. He cut a better figure than usual, in a well tailored linen shirt that had his sister's fingerprints all over it, figuratively speaking. We'll probably literally, too. Arthur suppressed this thought.

"I'll have one for Morgana, too, while you're at it there, Leon."

Leon turned to him, and wiped his hands on his front. Poor Morgana had her work cut out for her with Leon's dress sense.

"Arthur, you've made it! Come let me introduce you to everyone. These are my sisters and my cousins and my aunts."

At his words, backs turned around to reveal faces. A few were men who nodded and returned their attention to their plates. The rest, a half dozen, or so really were all women, women with curious eyes..

"Well cousins and sisters in law,". One said as she shook his hand. She took the wrong one as he had Morgana's wine glass in the other. Hers was the only original remark as each of them in turn said:

"Leon, you never told us Morgana had a brother!" Or else "Oh so you're Arthur!" Whatever that meant.

"Ah yes, Guilty as charged." Arthur could tell he'd gone a bit cross eyed 

"I I was under the impression they only produced men in your family," he said, sotto voce, as the group converged and touched him and left again when they realized he wasn't going to say anything interesting.

Safely stood behind the table, Leon laughed.

"Ah well, 4 boys means four girlfriends, you know. It made a nice change, actually. You know how men are left to themselves." He glanced over at the tree where his brothers had started in on a tether ball tournament. Gwaine and Lance had joined in and there was a lot of grunting and some quickly swallowed swear words. Merlin and Elena were heckling and calling out bets. When he looked back at Arthur's face, his complacent expression morphed slowly into a wince.

"Oh Sorry, I shouldn't have said that. I forgot about Merlin being a man."

"It's quite alright." Arthur wasn't sure why he'd gotten so uncomfortable. He never felt wrong footed at company functions. Perhaps it was the summer jumper he'd let Merlin buy for him; it was almost like something Gwaine would wear and he'd only opted for it because Merlin sulked when he said he'd rather be too hot in a jacket than be caught dead in it. 

For the 100th time since they'd set foot on the lawn, he found himself about to pluck the fabric away from his pecs. Thankfully, he was interrupted by a little hand touching his shoulder.

"Gwen! " Gwen's smile gave out its usual level of kilowats. The person with her was not smiling. "Oh no, you've brought Morgana." He gave her a kiss. "Wasn't Lance available?"

"I promised Morgana I'd get her a drink. She's knocked off her feet introducing everybody and apparently the person who said he'd take care of it didn't show." Gwen pretended to shake her finger and Morgana laughed and held out her hand.

Arthur looked down at the wine glass he'd forgotten about.

"Oh, right. Here you are, Morgana. Sorry about that."

"It's alright, Arthur, we all know you get a little distracted when Merlin spends time with Gwaine." 

"I don't know what you're talking about," he lied. She smirked and made contact over his head at Leon, sending out unspoken instructions which Leon would be sure to follow. He sometimes couldn't believe that he and Morgana, who were not soft people, could have won the loyalty of men like these.

"Do you want me to get out there and do some socializing, Morgana?" Leon was already stepping away from the table.

"No, no that's fine, Leon. We don't want John pouring; everyone will be tanked before lunch."

"John's Leon's older brother," she explained as if that said everything. "I'll just take Arthur around myself."

She grabbed Arthur by the arm and Arthur had the presentiment that this was the aisle and he was leading her down to an altar where she would be transformed into someone else. He wondered if she was going to take Leon's name, leaving him the only Pendragon.

"How has it been, Morgana?" He asked. "Leon's family seem like good enough types. It's going to be an awful crowd come Christmas, though. You don't suppose they're going to make us take turns opening one present at a time, do you? We'll be at it all day." She didn't respond right away and he wondered if he had overstepped. "I mean, if they want me to come. I'm not sure how these things are done in other people's families."

"Of course you're coming, Arthur. If you're not off with Merlin somewhere. Wherever I have Christmas, you have Christmas. Assuming I like what you got me," she added to save him from having to make an emotional display.

"Thank you," he said, meaning for everything.

"I think we're going to have it at our place, this first time." She and Leon had long since combined households at the old Pendragon flat and Igraine's old dining room table was seeing a lot of use, but Arthur was surprised her ambition stretched to Christmas.

"Is his mother going to like that? Don't women get territorial about things like that?"

Morgana stopped for long enough to look at him. His sister had changed a little in the time since what they now referred to as the "business with Gwaine." She had lost the slightly hysterical edge that sometimes crept into her voice. 

"You haven't met Leon's mother, yet. When you do, you'll understand."

"Joyce," she called. The women in the wrap around skirt turned around, took them in and immediately crinkled her eyes up. 

"Morgana! This isn't Arthur, is it?"

Arthur held his hand out and she took it in hers- firm and dry. He got the impression that she had in fact heard all about him and didn't hold it against him. Either that or she was inspecting him for cataracts. Wasn't she some kind of eye doctor? He kissed her cheek and clasped the other hand over hers.

"It's good to meet you, Joyce."

"And there's also Gwen," Morgana added. "I think you met her boyfriend, Lance, earlier."

"I'm really here for Merlin, " Gwen said, "though of course, Morgana's lovely. I mean I'm sure I don't have to tell you that."

Joyce, obviously a wise person, ignored Gwen's stumbling and peered at her as if she'd misheard something.

"Merlin? That sounds familiar."

"Merlin's my partner," Arthur explained. He felt his pulse race oddly. It was only the second or third time he'd said these words. "Gwen's his best friend. I mean apart from Gwaine. They're all like family, more or less."

Joyce chuckled and crinkled up her eyes even more.

"You know, Morgana, when Leon first told us about you, one of the first things he said, after he'd told us how beautiful you were, was that you hardly had any family."

"It was just the two of us, Arthur and me, for a long time," Morgana agreed. "Then this lot showed up."

Because Arthur saw Morgana the day she'd signed the Pendragon company over to herself, at midnight before her 21st birthday, he knew what the toss of the hair and the small smile meant.

"I know how that goes." Joyce laughed this time and her eyes disappeared altogether. "Well you're all welcome. It's the more the merrier around here. Though you'd best look sharp if you want to get any food."

* * *

Lunch was a fine spread and there was enough fish and grapes and sliced beef and mint peas and trifle for all, though many chaffing dishes spent a lot more time at one side, one heavier side where the big eaters were.

The table was a bit lopsided. Had it been hanging from the branches of the trees above it would have listed decidedly to one end where most of the men were sitting. Arthur hoped this wasn't Leon's doing, after his little comment at the drinks table.

If it was, the attempt to make Arthur more comfortable had backfired completely. Merlin was seated across from Arthur, absorbed in a conversation with Elena and some of the girlfriends he'd met. Occasionally he smiled at Arthur, but for the most part Arthur was talking to his beer swigging, fact quoting, rugby playing neighbors.

These were Arthur's kind of people. Normally, he relaxed in their company. What was going wrong? Arthur had even trotted out some cricket scores and still no one was looking him in the eye.

Worse yet, Merlin and Morgana were feeling sorry for him. He could see it in the sweet flashes of Merlin's attention, and the surreptitious hand squeezes under the table. Morgana had even bitten her lip at him once and whispered to Leon about something. Morgana never bit her lip.

At his side, Gwaine was chatting away with Leon's younger brother, the stout one. Gwaine seemed very intent and from the words being bandied about, like oxytocin and crow pose, he got the impression that they were trading professional secrets. How did Gwaine do these things? His conversation with Leon's brothers had just petered out into 2 parts weather, one part throat clearing.

"Gwaine,". He poked him in the side. Gwaine merely gave a squeeze to his leg and kept talking. Christ, these multitaskers. He gave the longish hair a little tug. "Gwaine, I need your advice."

Instantly he felt the full effect of Gwaine's hazel gaze, the one that looked lazy and missed nothing.

"Of course Arthur. Sorry to ignore you. I think Ed over here is going to publish a paper with me in return for a few pointers on the abs." He patted his stomach with understandable pride.

"Right. Well, I'd like to read the paper, when the time comes. What I want in exchange," he said, his voice rising as he anticipated Gwaine's objection that it would naturally be Arthur's pleasure to read it, "is for someone to tell me why I'm such a sad sack at this event. I mean I can talk to the women alright, but it's damned awkward with the men and that's all of Leon's family I promised to get on with."

"Well you know you are a bit uptight, Arthur," Gwaine pointed out with his mouth full. For the thousandth time, Arthur reflected that Gwaine could afford to be a little more uptight.

"Yes, but other people don't usually know that. Other male people. Normal male people," he added.

"Ah." Gwaine looked around. He met Merlin's eye and squeezed Arthur's hand, giving Arthur the sensation that the squeeze was from him and Merlin together which was just...really. "I know what it is, Arthur. You see, you're gay."

"What?" Arthur looked around. "Is it the obscene jumper? Because you're wearing practically the same thing and everyone is networking with you."

"It's not the clothes. It's the fact that you like men. It makes blokes nervous."

"But you like men! And you're a sex therapist who helps men, among others. Leon's brother must know if he's publishing a paper with you."

"I know, Arthur, but I came here with Elena and you came here with Merlin."

"Oh. So if I walked in the door with Elena and you walked in with Merlin, then you'd be gay and I'd be having a good time."

"Excuse me, Arthur. I always have a good time."

Gwaine showed every sign of turning back to his trifle. Considering the towering spoonful he was currently trying to stuff in his mouth, Arthur hoped he would finish soon. He was disappointed. "Don't worry," Gwaine garbled through a mouthful of custard, "lick these bastards at one good football game and they'll forget all about it. We'll be on your side, me and Elena. 'We'll have them crying into their beer."

"Oh, excellent." Arthur returned to his own plate. He was still on the peas. There were more than he thought and he wasn't going to finish them. "I guess it's not all that different from usual." 

"Mind you," Gwaine went on. He was drinking now, in large gulps, "It's not fair, is it? You know I don't really fancy sitting here passing like this. I think I might make an announcement."

If Arthur had ever wondered if his boyfriend was spying on him when he spoke to Gwaine, the question was answered now.

"Gwaine, no!" Merlin said. Elena, who though sat a few seats down must also have kept an ear out for signs of trouble, trotted up behind and removed the fork from Gwaine's hand.

"You don't really want to make a speech, do you, Gwaine?" She asked. Like this she was taller than him and her hair sloped on either side of his head like a bad wig.

"I don't? Hey you're tickling me!" He snorted and she laughed and leaned forward.

"Do you fancy a snog upside down?" Gwaine being Gwaine did and soon they were kissing right over the table.

"I'd like to do that," Merlin said whistfully, looking at Arthur, the only person not looking at the kissing pair. 

"We'll have mistletoe at Christmas," Arthur said. "Morgana's insisting on hosting the first time." He thought that Morgana might have done it to make her own claim, but it might have been for him, too. "You may kiss Gwen and Lance, if necessary, but Gwaine..." The man in question made a hand signal over Elena's head that seemed to be somewhere between a hand wave and a call for help. "Gwaine is off limits."

"I was going to tell you the same thing." Merlin kissed him anyway, and Arthur made sure not to look around to see if anyone noticed. 

There was football, as it happened, a series of ever less structured games, played by the end in the growing dark, during which the evening cool very fortunately came on before anyone other than Gwaine could take his shirt off. The older people retired to the warmer and brighter house and made their goodbyes but the younger generation lingered on a bit under the trees. And even after everyone got drunk and started to have conversations from the middle, without explaining the beginning of anything or expecting anyone to listen to the end, Arthur enjoyed it..


End file.
